Point/Counterpoint: A Permanent Loker Pub

How many times have you been out searching for parties wishing there was an alternative to trekking around campus in order to find some much needed fun? Well fear not, prototypical Harvard student! Riding in from the distance on a white horse to save your weekend nights is Loker Pub Night—and perhaps a permanent pub!

No longer an ugly waste of a $7 million donation used primarily by fly-by lunchers and math CAs, Loker Commons now has a draw. Yes, you read that right—people actually want to go to Loker. The combination of beer, music, a social scene, and dancing seems to be just what many students were looking for—and a permanent pub in the Memorial Hall basement would make sure they would never need to look for it again.

Pub Night is a big draw for a good reason—it fills a key social niche that until now was empty. The social scene usually involves a rare dance or formal, exclusive final clubs, bars, or crowded hit-or-miss room parties. Pub Night is the first and only all-inclusive space where students can kick back, chat with friends (possibly over a drink), enjoy some music, dance, and mingle. It’s another option for your social life—you can just pass through or spend the whole night there, as will likely happen when other parties are shut down for LSATs or MCATs. Yet Pub Night is only one night per weekend; a permanent pub in Loker would be an even more reliable social option for all Harvard undergrads, which is something that the College currently—and sorely—lacks.

Meanwhile, the downsides to a basement pub are virtually nonexistent. There is an issue of cost, but Pub Nights have had popularity unrivaled by other social events and are the best possible investment for our social-improvement dollars. At worst, a permanent pub would drain the attendance of other parties, but given the overcrowded and over-exclusive nature of Harvard partying, this is hardly a drawback.

The bottom line is that a pub in Loker would expand the social horizon at Harvard for all students, and it’s hard to see why that isn’t a good thing.

Adam M. Guren ’08, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Wigglesworth Hall.

Counterpoint: Institutionalized alcohol won’t fix the scene

Loker Commons, that sulking sewer of broken dreams deep beneath Memorial Hall, is a living monument to Harvard’s inability to effectively accommodate the social lives of its students. It is a failed project in almost every respect, its original purpose obliterated by poor design and subsequent misuse. But while reviving Loker Commons as a student center is a noble aim, indeed, the transformation of the space into a pub environment would be counter-productive and, more than likely, ultimately unsuccessful.

The idea behind a Loker pub is a simple one; if you build it and serve alcohol, they will come. The problem is that, though many would benefit from the establishment of a pub, others would be left (quite literally) out in the cold.

For many students, Loker is a meeting area and workspace, and has a regular weeknight population of undergraduates who use its facilities. True, this type of use hardly constitutes the kind of student center environment envisioned by benefactor Katherine Bogdanovich Loker, but it is use of the space nonetheless. For many, the creation of a pub in Loker would mean the end of the space’s potential for productivity.

A second, larger, group that would literally not be well served by a Loker pub is those students who are not of legal drinking age. Of course, some enterprising undergrads will find ways to circumvent the rules and imbibe regardless, but for those whose conception of a social space does not or cannot for legal reasons involve alcohol, a pub in Loker Commons would be a step in the wrong direction.

The way Loker is used ought to change, but the installation of a pub would be a misstep. The success of “Harvard Pub Nights,” which are held in Loker, should not indicate that the space should be transformed into a permanent pub. Rather, it indicates that these events should continue, while a more inclusive, permanent student space is created in the basement of Memorial Hall.

Adam Goldenberg ’08, a Crimson editorial editor, lives in Grays Hall.