The Oak Room

[Queersetti]

When I was in college, there was a very high class restaurant on campus, known as the Oak Room. It had been there for decades, and had a very good reputation. It was one of those quiet, intimate places where a couple could enjoy a romantic evening of fine dining and conversation, and it was the preferred location that couples chose for important dates.

If they were a straight couple, of course. In that repressed, stodgy atmosphere of a private southern university, the idea of a gay or lesbian couple dining there was simply not tenable. To those of us who were queer on campus, the Oak Room was a symbol of our exclusion.

I received my alumni magazine the other day. It contained an article about the Oak Room. It seems that in recent years, fewer and fewer students have had any interest in it's old fashioned ambience, and it had become a financial drain on the university. So, after some 70 years of service, the university decided it would close the restaurant and put the space to a new use.

It will be the new home of the university GLBT Center.

 

[fenderman68]

There is definately some poetic justice in that!!!!!!!!!

 

[Guest]

YES!!!!!!!!

That is fantastic! That must be such a satisfying feeling for you. It is for me, and I'm not even familiar with the place

 

[College_geek]

We have an Oak Room at UMass, but it's a dining hall. The interesting connection (sort of) to what you mentioned is that it's in the living area that has the 2 in 20 living areas. One could say that this is exclusion because it involves 20 gay or bi people living with 2 straight people on the floor, but it's meant sort of like a GSA. The only thing that confuses me is that the GLBT center on campus, the Stonewall Center, is on the side of campus. I never understood that.

 

[plethora]

I agree, poetic justice indeed.