Boozing and Cruising at the Filly

It's 11:30 on intersession Friday, and a line twenty strong advances by two's and three's down concrete steps and into the basement of a medium-sized wooden building. Though half of Harvard is gone for the weekend, you wouldn't know it from the crowds at the Piccadilly Filly.

In the last year the Filly has become one of the major college, hangouts in the greater Red Line area filled every night with a minimum 65 percent Crimson content. No one agrees on a single reason behind the Filly's success. Anita Rival '85 says the Filly "because the Harvard bar because the drinks are really big, really good, and really strong." Anita wrote an 'V' paper for her Psychology tutorial on the entrepreneurial mindset of the two owners, William P. Love and Frank F. Castagno, Jr. (so far they are still available as subjects for a senior thesis)

"Usually you can walk in and it's a big Harvard social club" says Anne Terman '85. "When not studying I come Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, some Saturdays and occasional Sundays" she says, though given a choice, "I'd rather go to Paris than go to the Filly." Bill Spencer '85 calls the Filly "a very good bar, with a lot of Harvard people, especially undergrads from Eliot, Kirkland and Winthrop. The owners are great," adding "they make you feel like you're having fun and not that they're out to make money out of you."

Some people go to the Filly for more noble reasons, Gregory Maertz, assistant senior tutor of Eliot House, is visiting the Filly for the first time, he says, in order to fulfill his responsibility as an educator. "Teaching is not really a classroom activity," he says, introducing some of his tutees. "I occasionally have a beer with students: it's all part of the same theory of education"

Maertz's attempt to explain his theory is interrupted by the sound of smashing glass and two bodies rolling on the floor. A very short and very drunk student (later identified as attending the Harvard Law School) insults a woman and throws his glass in front of her. Unluckily for the short bloke, the woman's older brother, eight inches taller and 75 pounds heavier, is close enough to take offense. "Hey! I got glass in my beer," exclaims a bystander as the bouncer and bystanders quickly separate the two combatants. The drunken student is bleeding profusely from having his face ground in the broken glass littering the floor.

"I come here for the blood," says an anonymous Eliot house senior. Maertz, the senior tutor, is less enthused. "I'm not coming back here," he declared. "This place is too rough for me."

The rapid increase in the Filly's fortune coincides almost exactly with the proprietorship of Love and Castagno, who took over the Filly a year ago Boyhood friends from Revere High, both put themselves through college by working as bartenders at Notre Dame and Boston Conservatory, respectively.

The Filly, like any other social scene, has its own peculiar shibboleths. Some of the more useful to know are:

Dress: As in any bar, the bouncer sets the outer limits of sartorial acceptability. Boots, gray jeans, and a slightly wild shirt are the absolute limit; its probably safer to stay within two classic Harvard styles: a Casual Kirkland (Harvard football t-shirt or a rugby shirt, Lee or Levis, Adidas or equivalent) or a Basic Eliot (Oxford button down, wool sweater, Levis or khakis). A jacket and tie for guys will only attract pesky single-sex, out-of-town-school types who think you're from the B-School.

Women have a little more flexibility, depending whom they want to be taken for. Angora sweater, tight skirt, colored nylons and pumps the Screaming Wellesley. Useful only if you want six slobbering moustaches in leather jackets and open shirts crooning. "We sure is from Harvard" as their breath corrodes your makeup. On a weekend, looking like you're almost off to a party provides a useful excuse to disengage from the lovestruck Lothario trying to stuff his phone number down your décolletage ("Excuse me, I'm expected at the party the football team is throwing"). Another weekend option is to don a power suit for networking through the handful of Business and Law school types present. But on weekdays keep to regular classwear, unless you're interested in shedding the prized Harvard image. A misdirected woman named "Wendy" tried unsuccessfully to pass herself off as an Adams House Junior, unaware that A-houses congregate at Tommy's and don't wear silk dresses. Anyone wearing a leather jacket is almost always worth avoiding.

The best place to congregate in the Filly is the left half (closest to the entrance) of the bar, but not the very end. Standing next to the men's room is O.K., but on crowded nights the sleaziest guy in the Filly inevitably stands right next to the ladies' room door.

The Filly's overwhelmingly Harvard character does not foster romance; "The prospects for picking-up are futile," according to one experienced Eliot house male. Women echo the lament: "Guys never buy girls drinks; girls are left to fend for themselves," says an anonymous Lowell House senior. But if you sight a prospect, the unassuming lines are the best. If you see some interest, offer to buy (or wait to offered) an iced tea (the Filly's most popular drink); this indicates that both of you are speaking the same language.

With the increase in the drinking age fast approaching, Love and Castagno are about to diversify. They have bought the defunel Blue Parrot upstairs of the Filly, and intend to reopen it as a traditional New England Fish House. "The students are great, but there's a completely different group of people here" that they hope to attract, says Love.