Modern Meaning
There are so many different paths one can take at this large University and so few places for students to branch out beyond those paths once they’ve set on them. As students progress, opportunities for social growth become more limited; They take less general education courses, see less new faces in their classes, and get more deeply involved in the same clubs they’ve been in since they began at Rowan. There are few Third Places on Campus that are common ground for Rowan’s diverse population, like the student center, which isn’t fully operational on weekends, and the library, which fosters academic productivity rather than socialization. Although not technically “on campus,” the Landmark Americana is one of the most established and efficacious Third Places in Glassboro for all populations of Rowan students, particularly upperclassmen (or those of legal drinking age) to meet and socialize. It has walkability, meaning people can linger there and enjoy many drinks without worry of how they’ll get home, it isn’t “owned” by a particular student group on campus, it is a common ground, shared and welcoming to all, providing students with opportunities to socialize beyond their typical group of friends.
For the college student population, feeling a sense of attachment extends beyond proximity, it’s about who you were as a student and who you grew to be after you have left Glassboro. Being a student at Rowan is a shared experience that is deeply felt at Landmark, especially on college nights. This sense of variability, never knowing exactly who or what you’ll encounter, but knowing that that it will be a college student, creates an immediate connection, you already have something in common. It gives Landmark the identity as a bar for all Rowan students, not one particular “type” of Rowan student. At a non-college bar, according to Kat and Laura (Rowan Grads), if you find out someone else at the bar studied at Rowan, it’s a conversation starter. At Landmark, it’s a given. According to Kat and Laura, everything is different at non-college bars: The conversations, the interior decoration (at college bars, there’s a lot of school colors), the bartenders, the mannerisms of the patrons (college students are louder, more rowdy, dance more, and know each other), even the celebrations they’ve seen: At college bars, there’s a lot of 21st birthdays, at non-college bars, there’s more bachelorette parties.
Going to a place like Landmark makes you feel like you’re a part of something. Like you’re a part of a community. As a college student, one never feels out of place at Landmark because it is a place that is meant for Rowan students. After you are no longer a student, however, there is a greater sense of self-awareness, as Laura felt when revisiting Landmark after graduating. Although it was fun for her to be back in a place where she has so many great memories, she could not stop thinking, “This place is not meant for me anymore.” Kat, Laura, and Morgan, all alumni who’ve spent a great deal of time at Landmark, have brought up the sense that something was not the same, even when they were with the same people in the same place where they used to convene. Students have attached a lot of emotions to to this hotspot, but after they graduate, they grow and change. They have different jobs and lives and priorities and responsibilities. It’s saddening for Rowan alumni to realize that like themselves, the places they’ve attached so many memories to are not impervious to change.
In a town that is built around college students, we have all of our whims catered to. The bars are geared toward us and what we like, as are the restaurants, the stores, the roads and parking, down to the way that the local 7-11 is laid out and the kinds of products it carries. All of it appeals to our demographic, which is why Kat, Laura, and Morgan, having “aged out” of this demographic, have shifted perspectives of Landmark and Glassboro as a whole. They’re no longer swept up in the excitement of a fast-paced, whirlwind environment. As a college student, so many major life moments come one after the other in increasingly rapid fashion, you don’t have time to process them. Returning to the geographic locations where these events happened: Locations where they first met significant others, where they found out they got a bid to a sorority, where they laughed and cried and danced with their friends, locations with such deep personal meaning, they’re able to view these places for what they are as a whole. And the whole is a little more dormant, a little less exciting, a little less theirs. There are new people filling these places, new people having first dates and dancing with their friends, new people making memories, new people in places that were once theirs. Somehow, this changes the meaning of the place.
It makes them feel like it’s no longer theirs, they left so that new people could come. And in a way, that’s the meaning of Landmark to Glassboro. Patrons are always coming and going, when the old patrons leave Glassboro, there’s always a new group of students ready to have their time and make their memories there. They’ll make it their own, and those who come after them will make it their own, and it will continue in an endless cycle.
The people change, the town might change, the bar might even change, but the need for one in Glassboro will never change.The Franklin House and Landmark have always enabled people to expand their reach within the community and create memories and relationships with those they’d have nothing in common with otherwise. Moments in this location may seem fleeting, especially with the transience of the college population that utilizes the space now, but the time that a student spent in a place is not invalidated because they were there longer or shorter than someone else. Every passer-through has made their impact on Glassboro and Landmark, and those who have made use of this space each have unique, individual perspectives of the place that make it eternally theirs, no matter how much they change.
