This morning I woke up too early, as I do every morning because of the light filtering through the slits between my window shades. I pulled up the shades and admired the view before me. To the left, the elementary school turned condominium on College St. and the immense office building on Court St. The red awning of Broad Street Books and opposite it, the dark maroon, oddly shaped government subsidized elderly home. The clock tower of the Middletown police station, and the scattered spires of various churches and temples. In the distance, the grayish blue bridge which passes into the hills of Portland, and patches of the snaking Connecticut River. And directly below my eighth floor High Rise window, the projects of Traverse Square.
Earlier, I heard the shouts of children playing, but when I looked down what caught my eye was a group of men shoveling dirt from a muddy black truck into the newly blocked off staircase that once physically connected Wesleyan students and Middletown’s poor. One of Low Rise’s many staircases, these four steps were blocked off with stark white cement by the time this year’s generation of Low and High Risers moved in. The wall was a disturbingly clear expression of the Administration’s attitude toward the residents of Traverse Square. It told them to stay on their side and us to stay on ours. And now the warning is covered with dirt, soon to be replaced by a flower garden for the benefit of visiting prefrosh and their parents. Now it is as if there never was a staircase on which students could so easily break out of the much-maligned Wesleyan bubble and meet their Traverse Square neighbors. The new protocol is to ignore their existence (but always remember to cross the street when we reach their block, especially if it’s at night!) Because all we know about them is what we read in the Argus or in Public Safety Announcements. They jump us and mug us when we are coming home drunk from a party. Or if we live close by, we hear them some nights hanging out on their stoops. We try to drown out their laughing and shouting with the classical music emanating from our laptops so we can finish our readings about the history of colonialism or the theory of racism.
Wesleyan had made some laudable efforts to build a community that integrates town and gown. Some Wesleyan students patronize Middletown stores, volunteer in the North End, teach ESL to Wesleyan employees or play with kids at local after-school programs, like the one at Traverse Square. But what if the University just threw a block party, or a cookout, like normal neighbors do when they want to get to know each other? At the very least, this would show Traverse Square residents that Wesleyan students want to be good neighbors. We could talk to and learn first hand about people who appear to be frighteningly different than us. Next time when we pass after class, we would have a reason to wave or stop and say hello, instead of tensing up, walking faster and looking straight ahead. And maybe this would begin to repair some of the damage done by years of building walls and sending out warnings.
Wesleyan University prides itself on creating students who are inquisitive, knowledgeable and conscientious, students who contribute to their communities. But what model do we have to follow? We are instructed to read extensively about the problems of poor people and minorities, and strive in think tanks and nonprofits to fix their problems, asking once in a while for their input. But we should not live near them. We should not talk to them. We should stay on our side of the wall.
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