When I was a lowly freshman, I dated a senior boy. This meant that I was cool and mature, and that I usually had some kind of house party to go to on the weekends. And yes, my behavior was just as obnoxious as it sounds. Dating a senior also meant that my boyfriend would occasionally descend into a foreign place, dubbed the “GCB,” where I was not allowed to follow. Those nights that he disappeared I spent making “real college memories,” or traveling with a pack of 15 fellow freshmen to a party in a basement where no one was having fun – despite appearances – and then ending up in a dorm to talk and laugh late into the night.
As a girl of only eighteen years old, I didn’t know where the GCB, or Grad Center Bar, even was. The name should have been a hint, but I still didn’t understand that the GCB was actually in Grad Center – the most awful of Brown’s living quarters – until I went to the Bear’s Lair (also located in Grad Center) to work out. From the treadmill I caught a whiff of beer aroma and knew that it couldn’t be far. Frankly, until then, I hadn’t truly believed that there could be a bar within a university building. But these things happen, I suppose.
Before I figured out where the GCB was located, I also had very little idea of what it looked like. From the stories that my boyfriend had imparted upon me, I developed an imaginary GCB of my own. In my head, the GCB was basically The Gate. For those of you who never got to experience The Gate (RIP), it looked more or less like a dining hall that hadn’t been updated since the 70’s. This is because it had not been updated since the 70’s. It was a haven of yellow canned lights, vinyl benches that had seen better days, a few nondescript pictures of campus, lots of puke greens and piss yellows, and a tiny little area in which you actually purchased food. Unlike its replacement, Andrews Commons, The Gate was a place to be seen, but not too closely. The dim lighting permitted you to do the sort of stuff that your parents didn’t want you to do, which is particularly enticing for a bunch of freshmen living by the phrase “No parents, no rules!!!!” Andrews is too open and too bright, and is therefore not conducive to debauchery because everyone in the room can see your shame. One reason of many that we should bring back The Gate.
I thought the GCB looked like The Gate – sad, but at least you could get a panini there – and I was pleasantly surprised to discover otherwise. I’m not going to ruin the mystery of the GCB for the underclassmen reading this, but I am going to say that it is not what you expect it to be at all. For one, it’s actually fun. It’s like walking into The Ratty, but there’s alcohol there, and so seeing a bunch of semi-familiar faces isn’t awkward, it’s exciting! And somewhat like a bar in the “real world,” there are also a bunch of adults there who you’ve never seen before (grad students and the like), which makes you feel like you’re not on campus. I’d also heard a lot about board games and cheese plates, and I’m surprised that they haven’t been a bigger part of my experience at the GCB.
This might also be a surprise to the underclassmen, because it was certainly a surprise to me, but the GCB is a lot chiller than somewhere like Whiskey Wednesday or a house party. You get to be in a room with a lot of people you know, which can get rowdy, but you also have to wait in line and pay for any alcohol that you consume. This, naturally, means that you’re not going to be as drunk at the GCB as you would expect (unless you pre-game it – the intelligent drinker’s best move). I have yet to be actually drunk at the GCB, and I was in Providence all summer. Being 21 makes it possible for you to drink “casually.” Instead of trying to get as much alcohol in your mouth as is physically possible so that you can tolerate the heat of a basement or dorm room, drinking in a bar is about developing “a taste” and “enjoying alcohol.” I’m not yet sure if those things are possible, but check back with me in a few months and I’ll be sure to update you on my “tastes.”
Basically, the GCB is like someone picked a bar up out of downtown Providence and moved it to the basement in Grad Center. It’s a normal place. Who knew?
I’m glad I waited until I was actually 21 to go to the GCB. It’s not easy to get in with a fake, and if you try it you can be banned for a year or more. Plus, if you see it before your junior or senior year, you might just ruin some of the magic of the place. I’d heard talk of the GCB for three years before I actually stepped foot in it. And once I finally saw the place, I’m happy to say that I was not disappointed.
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