It's Monday night and The Willow House is alive. It sits pulsing on the corner of McDowell Road and Third Avenue in Phoenix; its many small rooms casting light at crazy angles into the cold night.
A young man in a leather jacket and slicked-back hair sits at a table out front, guitar slung casually over his shoulder. From inside, the low mumbling of dozens of conversations blends with the sounds of The Tuning Room - a local three piece of a guitar, a bass and a cello. They finish up to a smattering of applause and an older man with an acoustic guitar takes their place. It's open mike night.
A 15-minute walk away, the Downtown campus residence hall sits at First Street and Polk Street. It's a four-story building that still looks more like the Ramada Inn it used to be than the residence hall it is now.
At 8:30 in the evening the halls inside the renovated hotel are silent and deserted. The only sign of life is a security guard at the front desk. Later, Tomoya Kawai - a tourism development and management exchange student from Japan, sits alone in a computer lab inside the residence hall.
"It's kind of boring; in this dorm it's kind of lonely," Kawai said. "I think there is nothing to do."
The residence hall is the first of several planned for the Phoenix area, currently housing 134 students.
Since last semester, the first semester the residence hall was open, around 20 students have left the Phoenix campus for Tempe's. After a semester downtown, many of the remaining students are still searching for a place to go in the Phoenix area.
"I think [students not knowing what to do in Phoenix] is true, but I think it is due to their laziness," said Megan Cremer, non-profit leadership and management senior. Cremer lives in the Downtown residence hall.
Phoenix's thriving arts and music scene has remained largely separated from the new residents of the Downtown campus.
"We haven't reached out to them and I don't think there are any more of them coming here," said Julia Yankowski, an employee at The Willow House.
The scene supported her statement. Although there were many ASU students at The Willow House Monday night, including theater junior and cellist for The Tuning Room, Joanna Emmott, no one in attendance was from the Downtown campus.
Laura Ellis, community coordinator for the Downtown campus, said ASU is trying to embrace its new community.
"One thing we'd really like to get the students to know about is the art walk, First Fridays," Ellis said. ASU has opened its doors to the monthly event, allotting space for art to be shown as well as screening a film during the walk.
Administrators are also trying to set up their own open-mike night at a theater near the campus.
Ellis said student word of mouth is how downtown hotspots will come about.
"We have a ton of [hangouts] downtown. The thing about them is they're not so well-known," Ellis said. Despite Ellis' attempts, some members of the downtown community feel that their message is being lost in translation.
"It is my opinion that [ASU administrators] are really struggling with some very simple issues," said Kimber Lanning, owner of Stinkweeds music store and Modified Arts venue in Phoenix. "There are a million things going on." The official downtown ASU calendar features such events as "Disneyland on Ice" and "The Arizona National Boat and Fishing Expo."
Meanwhile, live music, art shows, and local theater productions are left off the calendar nearly every night.
"We are right here wanting to help them feel connected and it's not happening," Lanning said.
Reach the reporter at: john.dougherty@asu.edu.
