Five years ago today, a couple of these people got married. The bride is named Lucy, a friend of my wife’s from college who I had not met until the day before the ceremony. The groom even my wife didn’t know (and – geez – I can’t remember his name).
Coincidentally, a football player named Ian Johnson got married to his college sweetheart, Chrissy Popadics, on that very same day, after famously proposing to her after his team, Boise State, won the Fiesta Bowl.
Last I knew (February 2012), Ian and Chrissy were still together. But I have no idea about Lucy and her beau.
But what I really wanted to talk about are colleges. Lucy’s wedding was at Brown University in Providence, RI. When you travel down the street, one crosses an archway and suddenly one is on the university grounds. I LIKE that, a lot.
It’s my considered opinion that campuses that are close to the city have a greater mutual connection. The College in St.Rose is like that in Albany. UAlbany is a split decision, with the downtown campus integrated, but the much larger uptown campus somewhat harder to get to. Binghamton U, in my hometown, is worse, isolated on the highway, and in Vestal, not even in Binghamton proper.
The traditional thinking is that colleges should be kept away from the settled areas so as to provide less temptation to the students. But all the kids have cars now so that thinking is outmoded and ridiculous.
But did you know that the South End of Albany is getting it’s own college? Construction of a campus center and classrooms is supposed to start this Fall on Warren Street, which is at a corner of Lincoln Park just behind Morton Avenue near the police station. You can’t get more Albany Urban than that. The idea is to bring college level instruction to the real downtown of Albany, where people need education the most.