The view from a Semple Street porch

Every year, on the Friday before finals, students gather on Semple Street to drink beer and… Every year, on the Friday before finals, students gather on Semple Street to drink beer and chill with friends. Last year’s SempleFest lives on in the local memory as a night full of destruction. Students crowded the streets and burned furniture.

So I decided to immerse myself in SempleFest this year to see if maybe the same would happen.

9:57 a.m. — The only signs of life on Semple Street are bright blue Natty Light cans, presumably from the previous night, sitting on porch banisters and a couple of men taking out the trash at the John N. Elachko Funeral Home, near the Dawson Street intersection.

Not really a surprise. Sure, the Facebook page for SempleFest says the party begins at 10 a.m., but no college student ever shows up to a party on time, unless, of course, he’s hosting it. And 10 a.m.? That’s early by college standards.

But then there’s the fact that last year, the first citation for underage drinking went out at 9 a.m. — 64 people were cited or arrested for various offenses including open-container violations, disorderly conduct, harassment and possession of narcotics.

So the police aren’t taking any chances. Within five minutes, they’ll be lining up along the street. Two police cars with one officer each sit outside 373 Semple St., just after Bates Street. Take about 50 steps forward and another cop car sits double parked, its officer waddling toward his comrades down the street.

Between last year’s SempleFest and this February’s post-Super Bowl riots, during which students did an estimated $100,000 to $150,000 in damage by uprooting traffic signs and parking meters, crushing bus stands, burning couches and breaking store windows, police decided that they needed to crack down.

And so, the question on students’ minds was, ‘Is SempleFest gonna happen?’

1:05 p.m. The next hour or so seemed fairly calm, at least in comparison to the YouTube video footage of last year’s events, during which students ran around with open containers, took over the streets and burned furniture.

It wasn’t until partly through the afternoon that students started to slowly fill up the porches. The brave ones sat on their steps while the police walked back and forth up the street, staring carefully to see if the students were going to step off their property.

One girl sat in a lawn chair on a small patch of grass in the danger zone, the area between a porch and the public sidewalk. A police officer hovered over her, sticking his face within inches of hers.

‘I don’t wanna see what happened last year,’ he says in a stern voice.

‘

2:27 p.m. — Two officers ride bikes the wrong way down Semple Street.

A student rides a bike the correct direction down Semple screaming, ‘It’s F**k Finals weekend, bro!’

Ahh, that precious weekend between the last week of classes and finals week, or ‘Hell Week,’ as it’s more commonly known. There are parties at the fraternity houses up on the hill. Carnegie Mellon University holds its annual spring carnival. And then, there’s SempleFest.

Pitt senior Lara Siminerio sits on her porch on Semple Street sipping beer in a bright red cup. A little earlier, officers had suggested she put her drink in the cup, rather than running around with an open beer can, which would be a slightly more obvious violation of Pittsburgh’s open-container law.

‘The cops are extremely nice,’ she says. She appreciated the warning that city police had placed on her door the previous day alerting residents of the crackdown.

‘We might have been more affiliated with the activity,’ she says, noting that her house sits several away from the ones with the biggest crowds, and she and her friends are being extra careful not to let any strangers near her porch.

The letter from the police said people would be legally responsible for anything that happened on her property and Siminerio and her friends have too much to risk, she says. Siminerio’s in her second year of pharmacy school and wouldn’t want to risk getting kicked out.

A combination of city and Pitt police officers ‘- at least a half dozen of them ‘- stand on the corner of Semple and Louisa streets again. Tim Delaney, the Pitt police chief, is among them.

So far, he says, things have moved slower than last year. His officers are just now starting to cite students. One of them just cited a woman for underage drinking.

‘I warned her to get back on the porch,’ one officer shouts, ‘but she wouldn’t move.’

The city and Pitt police, who are receiving time-and-a-half for their work, will patrol Meyran Avenue, Semple Street and McKee Place until at least midnight looking for people violating the law. He’s glad the citations are beginning later in the day, but says, ‘It would be foolish’ to think that things couldn’t eventually escalate.

He doesn’t know why the street parties have become more violent over the past few years.

‘I quit trying to figure out what goes on,’ he says.

City police Detective Donald Pasquarelli chimes in.

‘We hope that the maturity comes out of these kids,’ he says.

‘

3:30 p.m.’ — A muscular guy in a black T-shirt wears a bright pink-and-green, cardboard birthday hat. Can’t ignore this party.

A quick walk over and it turns out that this apartment belongs to Homecoming king Akere Atte. Atte applied for a permit for SempleFest, but rescinded his request when he found out that he’d be legally responsible for anything that happened. At the moment, his part of the party is confined to the porch. I find a few guys to grant me interviews.

‘We’ll let you ask us a few questions,’ they say, ‘if you wear a birthday hat.’

Request granted.

Their names: Kevin Eckhart and Dan Gerber.

Number of drinks: ‘Multiple, numerous, several,’ says Gerber. ‘Less than 10.’

They’ve been here for about an hour or two. Time kind of blends together at SempleFest.

Things are going a little slower than normal, they say. They’re ‘usually fouler,’ says Gerber.

Last year, he came over around 2 p.m. and was drunk by 4 p.m., he says. This year, he did the same thing, but barely seems to have any in his system. His words aren’t slurred and his eyes aren’t bloodshot, at least not compared to the guy sitting on the porch next door.

Gerber’s a little disappointed by the effect that the police presence is having on the event, but hey, he says, you play with the cards you’re dealt.

‘We got a pair of twos,’ he says, ‘and made it work.’

Eckhart says he thinks the number of police ‘- a large group of eight of them were standing in front of his porch about a half-hour ago just staring at the students drinking ‘- is ‘excessive, but understandable.’

Gerber and Eckhart are pretty sure the event will pick up. People come to ‘enjoy each other’s company, fun and loving,’ says Eckhart. That concept doesn’t change no matter how many police are walking around.

He adds that, ‘Around dusk is when you people lost your inhibitions last year.’ Dusk hits in about two or three hours.

They take a couple of seconds to note that it’s a little harder to ‘lose your inhibitions’ with the cops standing right over your shoulder, even the plain-clothes officers, they say. They can’t help but make fun of them.

‘If you’re 40 and you’re walking around in a SempleFest T-shirt,’ they say laughing, ‘we know you’re a cop.’

A few moments pass, the guys drink some more of their beer, and a uniformed officer walks up to the porch. He leans in.

‘Me personally,’ he says, ‘I’ve got nothing wrong with what you’re doing. You guys aren’t drug dealers. That’s cool.’ The other officers, he says, ‘want action.’ So be forewarned.

The officer walks away and I ask Gerber what he thinks of that. It’s hard to say what to make of the police, he says. They have so many different sets of expectations. One female cop walks up and down the streets with her pad of citation papers flopping out of her back pocket.

‘Most officers have a gun there,’ says Eckhart. ‘She’s got citations.’

Gerber wonders if the officers get a prize for citing the most people.

Eckhart adds that he and his friends are ‘just doing our best not to get a foot stuck up our ass.’

Atte, they point out, is handing out baby blue wristbands to everyone on his porch to make sure that they’ve paid and that they’re 21.

‘It’s how we get our money,’ says Eckhart. ‘Watch.’

A short guy with dark hair walks up to the porch, three girls by his side. He pulls out two $20 bills and hands them to Atte.

‘Look, he’s really fast,’ says one of the guys on the porch. I can’t tell which one because my back’s now to him as I watch the transaction.

Atte takes the bills and counts them.

‘Look, he’s gonna put them in his wallet really smoothly,’ someone says.

‘Dude, he’s crumpling them,’ says another.

Atte slowly counts some change for the guy. It’s hard to see how much he hands him because he’s moved slightly to the left, obscuring my view.

Atte quickly pulls a wristband out of his pocket and slaps it on the guy’s wrist. I never saw him check the guy’s ID, but hey, it’s possible I missed it during one of the few instances when I turned around to see who was talking.

The guys start talking about the cops again. They’re everywhere, or so it seems, and therefore a little hard to ignore.

‘It’s nice when they actually connect with you,’ says Eckhart. ‘It’s a lot easier to abide by what they’re doing.’

Wait just a few hours, a few dozen more beers and who knows what will happen.

Eckhart points to a silver car parked in front of the porch, laughs a little and says, ‘I might be able to lift that car when I have a few more drinks in me.’

The atmosphere is a little tenser at the next porch down the street. The guys are selling light gray T-shirts with yellow words that read, ‘SempleFest, April 17, 2009.’ A yellow crown floats above the word ‘SempleFest,’ a bright yellow keg below them.

One guy squirms a little when I ask his name. All he’ll tell me is that the shirts cost $10 each. Another guy sits on the stoop, his eyes the most bloodshot I’ve seen yet. The others direct questions to him.

‘Who’s making the shirts?’ I ask.

‘Reebok,’ he replies.

Right, I think to myself. And I’m a 5-foot-11 blond supermodel.

‘Who gets the money?’ I ask.

‘A charity,’ he says.

‘Which one?’

‘They prefer to remain anonymous.’

Right, sure.

I’m off down the street looking for someone who might actually tell me the truth. It’s not long before I run into a friend.

‘LIZ NAVRATIL!’ he screams, picking me up and spinning me around. I think it’s fairly safe to say he’s trashed. Before I know it, he’s bringing his friends over, telling them I’m from The Pitt News. They agree to talk, but only if I keep them anonymous. They’re scared that the University will chastise them.

One girl’s upset about the police presence. This is her second SempleFest, she says, and it doesn’t even compare to her first.

‘It’s college students trying to have fun,’ she says of the event. ‘Everyone is on their porch and everyone’s being themselves.’

She stumbles back just a smidge as she straddles the line between sobriety and drunkenness.

One of her friends steps off the stoop a few minutes later, an open can of beer in her hand. It’s a violation of the city law. But, hey, I’m not about to say anything.

The city’s letter actually encouraged more students to drink, she says, noting that students ‘were excited about f**king over the city controller.’ An unknown amount of alcohol in her system, she continually refers to Commander Degler as the ‘city controller.’

‘Aside from this, it sucks,’ she says. ‘It was f**king insane last year. I was doing dizzy bat in the street.’

This year, it’s not worth the risk, she says.

‘When I walked off my porch with a beer, the cops yelled at me,’ she says, oblivious to the fact that she’s committed this legal sin once again. And, she adds, ‘I’m under 21.’

A Pitt police officer walks over to some students at the house and warns them to turn down their music. Students can be cited for violating noise ordinances if their music can be heard 75 feet away.

‘I don’t care,’ the officer tells the students, ‘but the city is cracking down.’

And so goes most of the afternoon and early evening. The students sit, in some cases, cooped up on porches and the cops remind them to be careful. The students who do venture onto the sidewalks often get cited.

Only the cover of darkness, multiple students say, will tell whether SempleFest explodes into what it was last year. That’s when people start ‘lighting shit on fire.’

‘

10:15 p.m. ‘- A student in a SempleFest T-shirt walks down Forbes Avenue saying, ‘I think I’m going to the bar tonight.’ He’s not the only one to leave. Parties also spread onto Meyran Avenue and McKee Place.

Turn down Semple Street and walk down a few blocks. Nine police officers are standing on the corner of Semple and Louisa streets. So far, not much new.

Atte’s house is the loudest. A bright blue, light-up neon bar sits on his porch and one student DJs.

A few steps farther down the street, a couple makes out in the middle of a driveway, sucking on each other’s faces as if their partners are oxygen and their airplane’s about to crash.

They won’t be the only ones to make out there. There’ll be a different couple there just about every time I walk by.

Students a few porches down scream, ‘Let’s go Pitt! Let’s go Pitt!’ which turns into ‘F**k the Flyers!’ Ahh, the hockey game.

That explains why Eckhart and Gerber weren’t at Atte’s — more from them later.

A freshman, who requested to remain anonymous given the nature of SempleFest, and his friend stand at the end of a driveway watching the action unfold. ‘It’s pretty much what I expected,’ he says. All he knew about last year was that, ‘It was crazy.’ He doesn’t know any specifics, only that students crowded roofs and lit couches on fire.

Bored, I turn around. SempleFest isn’t quite as chaotic as I expected, at least before the warning letters went out.

A guy with a hipster haircut, sporting a black T-shirt, comes running toward me.

‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!’ he screams as he hits me with a hug. I’ve never seen this kid in my life.

‘I’m sorry, you looked lonely,’ he says. ‘You were all by yourself.’

I pause for a second, completely confused. It’s OK, he keeps talking.

‘Have you had your first birthday makeout, yet?’

Yes, I quickly lie. He’s not really my type.

‘Aww, come on. Just two seconds. I don’t know you.’

I free my wrist from his grasp, say, ‘No thanks,’ and walk down the street. SempleFest, for me, will be over. You can only watch college students get wasted for so long before you’re bored to tears.

The final tally

Pitt police were still tabulating the number of citations and arrests Sunday night. Preliminary numbers, they said, would be available this morning.

One officer, who declined to give his name because he wasn’t authorized to speak on behalf of the department, said that so far, it looked ‘a lot better’ than last year.

‘

The morning (ahem, actually evening) after

No party coverage would be complete without news from the morning, or in this case the evening (Hey, I didn’t want to be cruel and catch them too early in the hangover), after. So Saturday evening I called Eckhart.

He says he was pleased to find that the crowds did pick up as the sun went down. He didn’t really have any set aspirations for SempleFest, given all the warnings that went out.

‘It’s like an NBA Draft prospect,’ he says of the event Friday afternoon. You don’t really know what to expect.

Eckhart says he stayed on Semple Street until 8:30 p.m., left to visit friends on McKee Place and eventually returned for another two hours. Being able to move to other streets, he says, saved him. Sure, the party could theoretically be called Semple/McKee/MeyranFest, but the essence is the same.

‘The fact of the matter is that people still want to relax and enjoy the last weekend of college,’ he says.