The GCB returns…
OK, ladies (gender neutral style), let’s talk about it: the GCB is back!
And, we’re seniors, but we’re GCB noobs.
Let’s review my first full night at the GCB. I was eating dinner at home, having a relaxing night with my roommates. The group chat blew up. Then, phone calls. It appeared people were trying, from all sides, to rally to go towards the freshly re-opened Grad Center Bar.
I had been a few nights previous, on the day it had opened. After spending an hour in line with my friends, they let three people in at a time, through the door and down the mythical staircase. We knew not what lay beyond the heavily guarded glass door, but we knew it was important. Something people wanted so badly must be good, right? And so we fought very hard to find $35 cash for the membership fee, we waited in line, we made sure our friends saw the BDH article that announced the Return of the GCB. In short, our desire to return to normalcy (whatever that means) became some other weird reminder of the ways things have changed for our class. When we were sophomores, we knew that the seniors and some lucky juniors might find themselves and their friends at the GCB on any given weekday night. Maybe we even knew someone who’d been there — no one would say much, besides that it was The Place to Be.
And, that’s all I’ll say: Get There.
On that Tuesday night, when I’d thought I was in for night, I was “dragged” out to the GCB. It took no convincing. I arrived to find some of my deer friends, nursing beers at a table in a room I hadn’t even known existed. It’s weird. I walked down a long staircase, lined with painted cement bricks. I suppose it has tunnel-into-the-VDub vibes.
You enter through a very nondescript door in a weird Grad Center sidewalk, and down you go. Then, a man sitting at a booth takes three different forms of ID (your Brown ID, your license, and your GCB membership card). The GCB membership card must be purchased with $35 cash. He then painstakingly reviews each one before he finally lets you in. You keep your mask on while you go to the bar to order a relatively cheap drink (they have beers for around $5, and the most expensive cocktail might be $10). You find your friends, and spend the rest of the the time chatting in a grown-up Ratty, if the Ratty made you pay for each drink and also included real-life grad students.
That night, the crowd at our table grew and grew. We chatted with people we hadn’t spoken to in years. Four of us saw our first-year roommates (you know who you are, queen!). We split pitchers of beer, and moved to a bigger table. I stayed up past my bedtime without even realizing it. At some point, I started talking to some people I had known of but never talked to, shouting across the divide between our tables. I moved to their table, talking to them about my thesis and meeting their friends. I saw those new GCB friends at a party tonight — ties that bind.
All of a sudden, it was time for last call. It turns out, along with basement vibes and hyper-specific Providence decor, the GCB has a time-warp effect. You know what they say… Time flies when you’re underground!
Image via Lily Willis ‘22.
