The New Ivy Campus

I mean, any press is good press- yes? A recent article in the Observer highlights 2 of our favorite things: Williamsburg and The Ivy-League, namely who reigns supreme: Yale vs. Harvard. Whether you find it sad or funny, the article read true. We have included a few key highlights (with TTT comments in red) below:

Mr. Bradley’s classmate, Slate editor Jacob Weisberg, was more specific but no less clear. “I mean, Williamsburg is sort of the Yale campus without the classes, right?” he said. “Brooklyn’s where Yale graduates belong; Washington is more where Harvard graduates belong.(and NYU boys can keep the East Village) Harvard, though it sends many graduates to New York—hello! this reporter among them—does not have the same relationship with New York as Yale—in part for the simple reason that it is much further away.

As Mr. Bradley put it: “The Harvard Club still feels to me like an outpost of another city—like it’s a subsidiary of a company that’s based somewhere else. The Yale Club feels more … I don’t know, Yale and New York always go together. Of course they do.” (Reminder Yalies, its getting nice out make use of the YC rooftop bar. Decent martini’s and on the way home from work)

Yalies in New York feel intense loyalty toward one another. Most of them love hanging out together, and prefer it to hanging out with anyone else.

There is a notion among Yaliens—the nonnative New Yorkers among them, at least—that the city is owned by them. (sad, but true) They covet ownership of it when they arrive, eyeing with frustrated envy the graduates of Columbia and N.Y.U. in their midst who have already been here for four years. (envy is a strong word, most NYU boys cant find their way past Eastern Bloc, oh wait, sorry, forgot about Rockit)

“They’ll [Yalies] throw around names of places in a way Harvard kids don’t,” one Columbia student complained. “They’ll say, ‘I’m at Botanica,’ even if they don’t know if you, someone who goes to school here, know what Botanica is, whereas I think Harvard kids would say, ‘I’m at a bar in Soho. It’s called Botanica.’ (well there is a lot wrong with this. Namely, who goes to “a bar in Soho” no one would ever say that. Period. That is the last place anyone would go for drinks.)

Really, this will always be an ongoing argument—like blackberry vs. iphone. Which ever one you have, you think is better. And then there are the phone stackers (aka have work Blackberry and personal iPhone), Yale undergrad Harvard grad (or visa-versa) yes, there are a few mincing around the city.