There’s no doubt about it — Georgetown is a nice place to live. The university is surrounded by charming multimillion-dollar homes, trendy shops and countless restaurants. According to the Princeton Review, Georgetown is the 13th-best college town in the country. But, particularly in the last year, news highlighting strained town-gown relations appeared ubiquitous. The precarious relationship between the two groups is conciliatory at times, strained at others. But if good fences make good neighbors, then just how damaged is the relationship between townies and Hoyas?

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

It appears that the answer to those questions depends on how close one lives to campus. The residents who live closer to Wisconsin Avenue than to 37th and O Streets tended to have more favorable impressions of the university and its students.

Richard and Karen Murphy, who live near the corner of 33rd and N Street, have experienced a positive relationship with their undergrad neighbors.

“We like living here near the campus,” Richard Murphy said. “It makes the neighborhood lively.”

They said there have been only three problems since they moved into their Georgetown address four years ago. One involved an intoxicated Georgetown student who found their front porch to be akin to his dorm bed, another involved a group of 100 students making their way toward M Street, and the third was a fight between two individuals who may or may not have been Georgetown students.

Local businesses who cater to large populations of Georgetown students shared similar sentiments.

“Well, I think [Georgetown] students are overall less rowdy than other universities,” Paul Jay Miller Jr., the executive manager of the Tombs said. “I wouldn’t consider Georgetown a party school.”

This academic year has been slightly different, according to the Murphys, who were not aware of the new alcohol policy.

“I’ve noticed something this year, truthfully,” Karen Murphy said, “and that is there is a lot less trash … and it seems to be quieter. When we first moved in, it was probably so loud we couldn’t believe it.”

Their next-door neighbor, Philip Mayhew, a former State Department employee who has resided in his Georgetown home for over 20 years, pointed out that Georgetown students are not the only group of people regaling in the area’s entertainment.

“When you’re looking outside, it’s awfully hard to tell who they are in the sense of whether they’re [from] Georgetown or not, so I don’t want to condemn Georgetown. On the other hand, I don’t want to clear them entirely,” he said with a smile.

Many residents appeared to consider town-gown relations as cordial and Georgetown students as average college students, if not better than their peers.

On the Front Lines

Danielle Rappaport, a George Washington University senior studying international affairs, adamantly disagreed. She and her mother moved into her 36th Street address this past July.

“My mom loves this place, but the neighbors are so rude,” she said, her eyes widening. “They are chaotic. I’m not a dork — I go party, but this is totally absurd to me. The amount of noise, at four o’clock, five o’clock in the morning; they’re just screaming.”

She said she could picture her neighbors reenacting the famous Home Alone scene, in which Macaulay Culkin clasps his cheeks and shrieks into the camera. This time, though, it is not so cute.

“I thought they would be cordial like they are in G-Dub,” she said, admitting to harboring somewhat of a bias as a student of GWU, “but I have to sleep with ear plugs. These guys are insane.”

She recalled another time when her neighbors were “just plain rude” about a month and a half ago.

“[My mom and I] were walking down [the street], and these guys got out of this big SUV,” she recalled. “They screamed to me and my mom, ‘Hey you! You want to f***?’ It was totally crazy, and this was in midday,” she said. “I got really mad, because that’s insane. Who says that? It seemed like they just got no education.”

Rappaport’s experience was echoed by another neighbor who lives on the same side of the street, who said that the residents who live across the street from the university property — particularly on 36th Street — definitely feel a palpable friction, and at times, outright antagonism, between the two spheres.

The beer-fueled antics that generate the biggest laughs the next day at the cafeteria do not go unnoticed by the people who live near the students.

“One night, a couple of them were taking those big green trash cans, brought them to the middle of the street, and just started emptying them,” another 36th Street resident, who preferred to remain anonymous so as not damage her relationship with her neighbors, recalled. The 17 townhouses across the street from her house are all owned by the university and are inhabited by Georgetown students.

“Another time, one of them took a Heineken bottle and made circles on the windshield of my car,” She contacted the police that time, but she said that nothing was done.

In order to prevent future incidents and also because she was just “really ticked off,” she said she had reported it to the university.

“They said, ‘Are you sure you saw what you saw?’ So I thought, ‘Oh, the heck with this,’” she said.

Even though the response she received was not what she had desired, she mentioned that she was supportive of Georgetown University. She has attended some speeches at Gaston Hall, some concerts and musicals and some movies on campus. While she was happy that the Georgetown basketball team had advanced to the Final Four last year, she was unwittingly swept into the festivities afterward.

“They took my radio antennae, they danced on the hood of my car, they danced on top of the car,” she said. “You know, they don’t have Mommy here to scold them.”

But like her neighbors a few blocks down, the resident said she also noticed a decrease in activity this year. “I have to say this year wasn’t that bad. I haven’t seen as many beer kegs, I can tell you that much,” she said She said that she was unaware of the change in the alcohol policy and that she also appreciated that the Georgetown University women who lived next door came in the beginning of the school year to introduce themselves.

The various disturbances have not gone unnoticed by the Metropolitan Police Department either. In the past few months, MPD has implemented what has been referred to as a “party patrol” — one set of two officers cracking down on noise violations in the areas surrounding Georgetown, including West Georgetown, Burleith and the Georgetown Waterfront. In the past year, MPD has reportedly been cracking down on loud parties, with officers arresting students for noise violations more frequently than in the past. These changes have been wrought among a perceptibly high level of student resentment and resident praise.

The Other Side of the Street

But complaints do not go one way on this street. Joe Hack (COL ’09), a Georgetown student who lives in one of the townhouses, is aware of the grievances raised by his neighbors. He and his housemates have already met with the university after some residents reported the situation.

“The residents have been complaining if they see five kids coming to our house,” he said. “They’ll automatically call the cops. I don’t think it’s outrageous for five people to be walking down the street and not be able to have a conversation at an audible level.”

So far, none of his housemates have been written up, and that, according to Hack, is because they have acted in accordance with university policies.

In addition, he said that he and his friends gave their phone numbers to his neighbors living around him and have made efforts to be friendly. But those efforts appear to have been all for naught.

“The residents don’t even complain to us,” he said. “They complain to the university.”

As for the noise, he insists that most of the noise is from students trekking their way home from Burleith after a night of merriment or from residents of O Street.

Overall, though, his disappointment lies in the university’s behavior.

“Our general feeling about the whole thing is that the university is so caught up in trying to please these residents that they’re not even going to bat for us,” he said. “Their first move is to accuse us, not to defend us.”

His unhappiness also stems from his unawareness that a university female employee was residing in the basement of his university townhouse until after the housing lotteries were completed.

As for the new alcohol policy, though, Hack said his social plans have remained unaffected by it.

“Overall, I don’t think [the alcohol policy] is awful. I haven’t had any problems because of it,” he said.

University’s Responsibility

When asked about the university’s initiative in reaching out to the community, the responses from local residents were mixed. Some residents like the Murphys had been given several university numbers to call in the case of any problems, while other residentssaidthey hardly received anything more than advertisements for summer courses.

Some residents are taking action and reaching out to the administration to curb the conflicts that arise.

“My mom is actually really active in trying to start some kind of dialogue between the university and the residents here, because I know we’re not the only ones [unhappy],” Rappaport said. “I know they met last week with the university people and the university people played kind of ignorant. Apparently it’s been a long running issue.”

Rappaport said she believes it is the university’s duty to prevent conflicts between the Georgetown residents and students from occurring or escalating.

“Ideally, the students should keep their voices low. But ultimately, it’s the administration’s responsibility,” she said.

Despite the assorted mixture of responses, all the residents did mention that they were aware of the university’s presence before they moved in, and that the university was here first.

“‘Town-gown relations, that’s a phrase that’s, what? — 800 years old?” Richard Murphy said, smiling.

“You have to live and let live,” the anonymous resident said.