(In response to Isabelle Novak’s Feb. 17 column “School in the city.”)
Give it a minute. You can’t start living in a city and just inherit the knowledge of all it has to offer.
I was a freshman in Taylor Place last year and I felt the same way as you for the majority of the year. Phoenix isn’t a city built around the college, unlike Tempe. To find what there is to do in Phoenix, you have to look farther than what you can see from the lounge windows of Taylor Place.
If you reserve yourself to the light rail life of commuting to Tempe every weekend and not even trying to find things to do in Phoenix, well then what do you expect? The city isn’t going to just give you a brochure of every nook and cranny as soon as you get off the plane. Try taking the light rail the other direction. There is a huge park bigger than anything in Tempe just a few stops away. There are eclectic places to eat like Thaiger and places that have been around for decades like Durant’s.
Yes, Phoenix is quiet. Extremely quiet, in fact it’s almost a ghost town. And that’s awesome. Nobody lives downtown but students; we have the city to ourselves. After 8 p.m. when the businesses close, you could play tag in the streets and not have to worry about watching out for traffic. And as soon as you turn 21, I’ll bet downtown takes on a whole new meaning. There are bars everywhere.
Downtown kids just assume there’s nothing to do because it isn’t happening on Taylor Mall. Spend one weekend downtown looking for things to do. You’ll find tons.
Liam Hausmann
Statepress.com reader
