"We Own It!"

In 1987, I was part of the first wave of "normies" to move in the Co-op (University Cooperative Housing Association, or UCHA), at UCLA. Think of "Co-op" and you probably imagine the famous (infamous?) Castro Arms at Cal, where the cockroaches really are that bad, and heated debates regularly erupt over recycling the thousands of beer bottles and cans (better to leave them for a janitor? But the janitor already has a job to support her family. Maybe they should go to the can collector, who earns his living collecting cans. But perhaps an organized recycling effort makes the biggest impact.)

The Co-op at UCLA encompasses three buildings: Hardman-Hansen Hall, the featureless grey and red six story building that looks like mass housing from late 60s Czechoslovakia; Essene Hall, the nondescript two-story Westwood apartment complex; and Robison, a Neutra-designed building across Landfair, which features famous hangout area the "Old Kitchen" (the "OK" was where you could shoot pool and buy beer bought from Price Club, a Costco precursor; Robison also has the landmark Co-op porch swing.)

Housing has always been an issue at UCLA. Either there is not enough, at any price, or there is plenty, but it's all too expensive. There was a brief housing slump the year Grandma bought her building on the back side of Fraternity Row in the 60s, and she's been terrified of vacancies ever since, but in general, Westwood is a tough market for students.

UCLA used a lottery system for dorm rooms, and my lottery number was in the low 400s. I was overjoyed. I'd be sharing a suite with athletes, most likely, with a number that low. But then tragedy struck: my deposit check bounced, and I had to resubmit my paperwork. My new number was in the 10,000s.

I had long known the Co-op as the place to buy cheap ice cream sandwiches, since we always walked past it when we visited Grandma, on our walks down the hill to Westwood Village. But live there? The students all seemed so depressed, so near-suicidal, even occasionally homicidal. But they did have vacancies, and the price was right: $500-and-change for room and board for an entire quarter. Sold. I moved in the Friday before school began.

I was assigned a triple, which was a double with one twin bed and a bunkbed offered at a lower price. The Co-Op was so overbooked that they turned study lounges into rooms. A couple weeks into the quarter, I tried to use a study room on my floor and was surprised to find it locked. Soquel High Honor Society President R.K., a fellow UCLA freshman and fellow Co-oper had been assigned to the study room during the overflow, and after things settled and he was assigned to a regular room, he found he liked the study room more, so he had his friends Troy and Howie help him move in a bed and desk and rig it up with a lock.

Sometime during the mid-80s, visiting grad students from the PRC discovered the incredible bargain that was the Co-Op. Almost overnight, the Co-Op went from predominantly hippie to predominantly Chinese. The transition was not a smooth one. I served on the Board of Directors (we had to do weekly work shifts, and once I discovered this would count, I politicked my way into getting a seat), and we were constantly dealing with issues like how to deal with power failures and fire hazards from too many rice cookers plugged in at once, or the delicate cross-cultural issue of Stir-Fry Night.

The food at the Co-Op was horrible (in fact, I ran for reelection of my Board term on a platform based solely on improving the food; I had weaseled my way into a replacement seat for my first term, so hadn't been properly elected the first time.) We hired two cooks, one full-time and one part-time. The part-timer was a hardscrabble single mother who had previously worked as a welder, and was now putting herself through real estate school. The full-timer was Bob, a perpetually angry heavyset black man missing a hand. Rumors swirled that he lost his hand in a cooking accident (most often cited as a meat grinder), but he had, in fact, lost it in Vietnam. I only ever saw Bob in one of two states: angry and apoplectic. If a 103 pound Philosophy major fell while attempting to drag 300 pounds of slippery floor mats out to be hosed down with germicidal spray, first he'd laugh, but then he'd be angry.

Of all the things Bob hated, the Chinese influx probably topped the list. So when Bob was told that every Thursday night would be Stir Fry Night, he went ballistic. Ultimately, a group of Chinese students formed their own independent food crew to man the kitchen Thursday nights, but the problem was that these were almost entirely male post doc students, none of whom had any background in cooking. The stir-fry was horrible. Thursday night was also Fraternity Party Night, since that was the only way the fraternities could lure the sorority girls to attend, Friday and Saturday being their prime date nights.

So Thursdays in the Co-Op were depressing indeed. We'd sit up on the roof, listening to the frats partying to "Louie Louie" or "Tequila" and picking at our oily stir-fry.

I lived at the Co-Op from 1987 to 1990. It was an interesting perspective for viewing some of the major world events that happened during that time. The Tiananmen Square massacres happened in 1989. The tv room was generally dominated by Star Trek (which I sometimes purposely called "Star Track" to annoy my fellow Co-Opers by flaunting my "normie" status), but when something big happened, the tv was wheeled down to the lobby. I will never forget the incredible sight of Taiwanese students comforting and hugging Chinese students. Normally the Taiwanese viewed the PRCers with what seemed a mix of pity and scorn, the Taiwanese being hipper and more affluent. It is fair to say they didn't always get along at the Co-Op, but after Tienanmen Square, we were even able to have a series of slideshows with photos of home in the Robison Coffeehouse, and the most popular ones were always the PRC and Taiwanese, showing pictures of wives, children, parents, and siblings, left behind in apartments often smaller than our Co-Op triples. For weeks, the lobby was taken over by Chinese students glued to the tv and mainlining coffee. It would be like going to France for a semester and turning on the tv to see your UCLA classmates back home being gunned down by the military.

The Berlin Wall fell during my time at the Co-Op, too, and again, the tv was wheeled down from the tv room for a lobby vigil (this time, though, the coffee drinkers glued to the set where poli sci majors, most of whom are now probably important cabinet members or presidential advisors or something. They all were very smart.)

Midway through my third year at UCLA, I found a jewel hiding in the haystack: an affordable, adorable shared apartment in Beverly Hills. My new roommate was a mama's boy who spent as much time as possible at his parents' nearby house (they owned the building.) Plus, it was near my favorite nighttime Denny's on Sunset (not "rock and roll" Denny's, but the one just outside the West Hollywood border, near Barney's Beanery. I would sit there for hours sometimes when I had insomnia.)

I missed the 24-hour nature of the Co-Op most. Students who have sacrificed everything to go to come to the States and go to UCLA literally study all night. There was always someone around. The coffeepot was always perking (my favorite study beverage from that era: General Foods International Coffee or hot cocoa powder, made with brewed coffee instead of water.) The foosball table (a holdover from when the Co-Op was part of Nerdistan, before the Chinese takeover) always had a line at least three deep. And when I needed to know why a potato explodes in the microwave if you don't poke holes in it (this was, quite seriously, part of a final exam for a basic "Physics for Poets" type course I took), there was always someone around to help.