COLUMN: On the wrong side of the economic divide

From Alan Lowinger's, "The Rest of the Story," Fall '00 From Alan Lowinger's, "The Rest of the Story," Fall '00My greatest disappointment is seeing the bottom of my wallet. It is characterized by an emptiness of abyss-like proportions. And man, do I get disappointed a lot. I live in New York City, but not the part you'd think. For all those readers who are not familiar with the geography of the Big Apple, my family's East 108th Street apartment sits on the outskirts of an area nicknamed "Spanish Harlem." The apartment is surrounded by a neighborhood where on each and every corner, without exception, there is a bodega. A liquor store is but hundreds of feet away, on a long avenue where 99-cent stores wage constant battles of attrition. The building in which I live is dwarfed by surrounding government-subsidized apartment buildings. Even the 24-hour stores lock their doors at night, just to be safe. Although West Philadelphia's neighborhood is not unlike my own, Penn's consumer culture would indicate otherwise. Now that the spring semester has started, I expect that soon Penn will turn into another virtual fashion show, where many of the "beautiful people" will prance up and down the Walk in their newest, most daring and most expensive outfits. In about two weeks, hundreds of freshmen will have upperclassmen yelling in their ears and making them do all sorts of unfathomable things. Did I mention that said freshmen will shell out hundreds of dollars for this privilege, properly called "pledge dues?" Last week, a friend of mine dropped $150 on a first date. Even more unbelievable, another classmate had the cojones -- and the money -- to invest tens of thousands of dollars in the stock market a month and a half ago. Today, he's made a tremendous profit from that risky venture. But while he's worrying about moves that involve making small fortunes, I can't even get off of financial hold. The point I'm trying to make here is not that having money should at all be seen negatively On the contrary, I cannot avoid feeling pangs of jealousy whenever I think about how little many of my peers have to think about it. Rather, I just don't understand the mindset of a campus buzzing with excitement over a Steve Madden store, or over an "Urban" that sells $20 grandZ-sized vanilla-scented candles. The only reason that this school is affordable to many of its students is financial aid. Without it, many of the bright minds that fill our research labs, our classrooms and our leadership positions would not be on this campus. I find it incomprehensible that many students do not know where the financial aid office is. To me, those offices in the Franklin Building are as inseparable from my picture of Penn as the Quad or Van Pelt Library. I commend Penn for supplying generous financial aid packages to many of its students. I just hope that recent "upscaling efforts," like the whole of Sansom Common, are not part of a general trend. I find some of these efforts to be worthwhile, but not at the cost of limiting options for Penn's silent underclass. Keeping stores on campus that are affordable to everyone should be one of Penn's greatest priorities; Penn is a school that should serve the needs of all its students, not just the rich ones. Future expansion of more expensive retail outlets, without the preservation of affordable alternatives, would be offensive to students in my situation. I imagine it would be equally offensive to the "full-time" residents of West Philadelphia. I look forward to my payday next week, when my wallet and I can live in temporary blissful harmony. I look forward to purchasing many necessities that I don't have the cash or credit for right now. And you can be sure that my list does not include a $20 candle. I'll work on replacing that burnt-out lightbulb first.