I grew up on Aberdeen St and so did my mother. We sold the house and my mother fled for greener suburbs a couple of years ago. That house was my (and my sisters) legacy from my grandmother. I loved living 2 blocks from downtown and had hoped to move back there someday. The Lees were our neighbours and over the years so were The Greenwoods, The Orrs, The Yorgas, The Karisimos (sp??) and various other families who came and went.
When my mom approached my sister and I about selling, I was mixed. I loved that house but also knew very well the troubles my mother had been having with the students. We finally agreed to sell and move my mom to what we all called "the burbs" (said with a gasp).
In my experience, most students are great neighbours. Over the years we had many at our dinner table for my dads famous pesto. Years later, students would come back to visit us or to see my dad at his tailor shop. In recent years, the entire landscape has changed. I hope Queens gets a handle on this or next years homecoming is going to end in tragedy.
Here is an article that appeared in todays
Kingston Whig StandardStudents claim Aberdeen Street as their own
Some contend site of riot is part of campus life and residents should move
By Jennifer Pritchett
Local News - Thursday, October 06, 2005 @ 07:00
Almost two weeks after Queen’s University received a black eye for this year’s Homecoming mayhem, student reaction on the street where the riot erupted ranges from unrepentant to embarrassed.
Still, some vow the giant bash on Aberdeen Street will live on next year because they feel that the neighbourhood is student territory.
“This isn’t a residential area. It’s a student ghetto,” said Nick Brennan, a second-year political science student.
He describes the student neighbourhood around the university as a major attraction for people coming to Queen’s and said it should therefore be considered by Kingstonians as an important part of campus life, even though it’s not officially part of the institution.
“People come here for this,” he said. “Queen’s students support the downtown [businesses] and what would Kingston be without the university, anyway?”
Brennan is one of several dozen Queen’s students who live on Aberdeen Street, the short avenue where as many as 7,000 partyers became a violent mob on Homecoming weekend.
Queen’s principal Karen Hitchcock met some of those students on Monday night in a room adjacent to her office at the university. The event was invitation-only for Aberdeen Street students and was closed to the public.
Hitchcock spoke to students for about 20 minutes. She said the university won’t tolerate the kind of lawless behaviour that occurred at the event, Patrick Deane, Queen’s vice-principal academic, told The Whig-Standard.
Though she didn’t give students any opportunity to voice their thoughts during the closed-door meeting, she invited them to contact her office later with ideas about how to ensure the riot doesn’t happen again.
Brennan wasn’t at the meeting, but he doesn’t see the residents of Aberdeen Street putting an end to their annual Homecoming street party.
“I thought [the party] was awesome,” he said. “I think the criticism of it was a bit overdone.”
However, he said that when some partyers overturned a stolen car and later set it ablaze, “things got a little crazy.”
He said he spent the night in his house or on a friend’s balcony near Aberdeen and Earl streets.
He suggested that families who live in the area “should go to the cottage for the weekend” so they won’t be upset by the disturbances.
“I wouldn’t keep [my car] parked there when I know it’s Homecoming weekend,” he said. “I would put it in a parking lot for the night.”
As for the lone family on Aberdeen Street, Brennan said he didn’t know them, even though just one house separates his place from theirs. He was unaware that their property was vandalized during the riot.
“I feel really badly for them, but maybe it’s time for them to move,” he said.
The 19-year-old student from Toronto wasn’t aware that Howard and Sim Lee have lived on the street for 35 years, long before the area became dominated by students.
“It’s only a matter of time [before] it becomes a student house, too,” he said. “My grandparents wouldn’t live in the middle of a student ghetto.”
But as Brennan was speaking with a Whig reporter in front of the elderly couple’s home yesterday, Howard Lee, 78, came out on the lawn and the two met for the first time. Brennan and fellow student Pete Macnee immediately apologized to Lee for the damage done to his property on the night of Sept. 24.
“I’m sorry about your fence – that’s pretty annoying,” Macnee told Lee. “It’s terrible. We have to fix it. I hope next year’s [Homecoming] is better.”
Both Macnee and Brennan were sympathetic and told him that they could help repair the damages.
The Lees were held captive in their own home during the riot as a massive crowd of partyers pushed up against their front door, preventing the family from opening it.
All night long, young men and women rang the Lees’ doorbell yelling that they wanted to come in to use the bathroom. When the Lees didn’t let them in, some vomited and urinated on their front step.
The couple could only watch through their windows as drunken revellers jumped on top of their three cars parked in the driveway. Repairs to just one of the cars are estimated at roughly $1,000.
Yesterday, Lee showed the two students his knocked-down fence in the backyard and the damage done to some woodwork on the side of the house.
Later, Macnee told The Whig that he would e-mail Queen’s principal Karen Hitchcock and tell her that they want to help the Lees.
“At the meeting with Hitchcock [on Monday night], she told us that we disgraced Queen’s and that we need to do something,” he said. “And we will.”
Brennan said he can understand why the Lees and the other permanent residents are upset with the students, even though some of those responsible for the destruction weren’t from Queen’s.
“If my car was stomped on and it cost $1,000 to fix, I’d be pissed,” he said.
Macnee, a second-year art history student from Toronto, admitted that this year’s Aberdeen party was crazy and “it was kind of stressful.”
“I wouldn’t even invite my girlfriend,” he said. “It was scary.”
He said the house where he lives at the corner of Aberdeen and Earl was also damaged during the riot when somebody kicked in the door. The repair cost his landlord $700. Brennan said his landlord also “flipped out” after seeing the damage done to the house he lives in.
Brennan didn’t know why the street party on Aberdeen became so violent this year, but like many other students since the riot, he blamed it partially on the police presence.
“I saw this bus pull up on Division Street and all these cops come out with their full gear on and I knew what kind of night it was going to be right then,” he said. “Well, I want to say it was the police, but that’s probably taking the easy way out.”
Neither Brennan nor Macnee could offer any solution to prevent the violence from recurring next year, but they said the party will keep happening regardless of what the police and the university administration try to do to stop it.
The street is perfect for a party because it’s just two blocks long and is conveniently situated in the heart of the student neighbourhood, they said.
They also said that next year’s Aberdeen party needs a DJ booth erected on scaffolding so that the atmosphere is more like a party with good music.
But David Shulman, a fourth-year philosophy student and Aberdeen Street resident, was embarrassed about what happened during Homecoming. He was giving several alumni a tour of his student house and they were up on the roof when they saw some young men flip the stolen car.
“I felt I had to apologize to them,” he said. “I was so embarrassed.”
– With a file from Ann Lukits
alukits@thewhig.com
jpritchett@thewhig.com
