Opinion: Housing projects aim to build, yet destroy campus culture

Casey Smith
Thu, 09 Feb 2023 02:15:53 +0000
Arts & Life, Instagram Page, News, Opinion, bier stuble, Campus Partners, high street, high street bar closure, high street bar closures, high street bars, lantern, Ohio, ohio state, ohio state university, osu campus bars closed, proposed apartment buildings, The Lantern

Bier Stube, a South Campus bar, faces potential demolition due to new apartment complex. Credit: Katie Good | Asst. Photo Editor

Venture inside Bier Stube on any given night, and you’ll see and hear many different things.

The first thing you’ll notice as you head over to the bar for a drink is the music. Yes, most of our generation listens to pop and hip-hop, but that’s not how Bier Stube rolls.

Instead, the jukebox — which only costs 25 cents per song instead of the $1 plays on TouchTunes at other campus bars — features selections from Jimi Hendrix, Weezer, Guns N’ Roses and one of bar owner Craig Kempton’s all-time favorite artists, Ace Frehley, and more.

After you get your drinks, whether that’s a low-priced well or one of the $1 cream ale specials the bar runs, sit down at a table, read the writing, view the chips and dents in the small, square-shaped tables made for conversation and good times.

If you just so happen to get the third booth from the bathroom entrance, glance over at the wall.

In gray Sharpie, the cigarette-smoke-stained wood reads, “If this bar didn’t exist, neither would I! My grandparents met here.”

At the Stube, there are no strangers — just friends you haven’t met yet. There is no bar on campus like it, and if it is taken away, it will only be another nail in the proverbial coffin of what gives Ohio State its unique identity and history.

Since 2020, various campus staples like Catfish Biff’s and Lucky’s have been taken from students for development projects, joining Too’s Under High and the original Ugly Tuna Saloona location in Gateway in the graveyard of what was once Ohio State.

Now, Buckeye Real Estate has proposed a plan that looks to destroy Bier Stube, which opened in 1966, 14-0 Express, Portofino’s Pizza and Yau’s Chinese Bistro in the High Street area near Eighth and Ninth avenues.

On North Campus, American Campus Communities — a Texas-based real estate company — has initiated the replacement of The Little Bar with — you guessed it — housing. That order has already been passed by the University Area Commission Zoning Committee and is awaiting a vote from the entire commission.

What makes a college town a college town?

“The local atmosphere, like having local businesses,” Megan Maxwell, a fifth-year in athletic training said. “People that are willing to support the school and help people out.”
Columbus is quickly moving away from this with its rapid industrialization, as the classic mom-and-pop shops are being pushed out.

Ohio State used to be a campus built by the common man for the common man. Now it’s become a place thriving off corporate greed.

Does campus have the same identity it used to? Maxwell, who worked with the Ohio State Alumni Association, said she doesn’t think so.

“I would call alumni, and they would just say like, ‘It used to be a lot of dive bars, and it was trashy, but it was good trashy,’” Maxwell said. “It wasn’t all modern and made to be materialistic and eye-catching, it was sh*ty dive bars that people enjoyed. And I know a lot of people, when I call them, and they’re like, ‘I go back on High Street, and I don’t even recognize it. It’s really different from what it used to be.’”

Daniel Meyerhoff, a third-year in sport industry and strategic communication, said he’s seen “noticeable changes” around campus, and he doesn’t see the trend slowing down.

“It definitely takes away from the appeal of the old-school shops and bars that used to be here even just like five or six years ago,” Meyerhoff said. “Hopefully, it kind of starts to slow down, but I feel like right now it’s still kind of at a quick trajectory of more apartments and less of the older places that have that history.”

Campus is a modern-day Levittown — the U.S.’ first mass produced housing development — rolling with high-rise, overpriced housing and construction as far as the eye can see. It’s pathetic.

Reflect on your college experience and think of the great times you and your friends had going out to your favorite bar. Imagine if those good times were taken away due to a project that you wouldn’t even get to reap the benefits of. How would you feel?

In an age so driven by technology and the opinions of others on social media, bars like Bier Stube encourage us to sit around a hardwood table, talk and laugh with friends and make memories that will last a lifetime.

The same environment it has promoted since 1966.