By Liz Gribkoff ’09
News Staff Reporter
“Choaties can’t crosss the street!” At one
point in his or her Choate career, every Choate
student has heard this, or another, often more
profane, statement, yelled at them from a speeding
car as they dash across the street to chemistry or
crew practice. The omnipresent tension between
Choate students and local high school students,
or “townies,” as Choaties so affectionately call
them, has become an accepted fact of life for
those who attend Choate. Recently, however, the
issue has even made it to the ranks of the cultlike
online social network “Facebook,” with three new
groups formed: “Choaties Can’t Cross the Street,”
“Choaties Can Cross the Street Properly,” and
“Choatie-Townie Alliance.”
The tension between local high school students
and Choaties is nothing new: Wallingford
resident and Choate student Sarah McNally’09
cites that the conflict, “wasn’t created in one day
because Choate kids couldn’t cross the street.
Even in my dad’s high school days, you knew
where the Choate kids were, and where the Lyman
Hall and Sheehan kids were because they
didn’t mix.” Many feel that the root of the tensions
is simply, as Mr. Robert Nelson’81 described,
“…jealousy. Choate is a special place, and people
from the outside look at it as privileged.” Nelson
also feels that there is less tension today between
Choate students and Wallingford residents than
there was when he attended Choate. Despite
Nelson’s belief that tensions have subsided, Mr.
Ford stated that, “the one thing that has changed
[about the relationship] is that there is more traffic
than there was twenty years ago…Christian St.
and Elm St. didn’t have nearly the amount of cars
going along them as they do now, and of course
the more cars the more interactions.”
Choaties Should Take Responsibility
Choate students themselves are not totally devoid
of blame for the generalizations Wallingford
residents form about Choaties, and the resulting
conflicts that ensue. “There is a certain elitism
that our students sometimes display,” says John
Ford, Dean of Students, “and it doesn’t help one
bit when our students saunter across the street
as they sometimes do.” McNally suggested that
Choate students, “need to wave when they cross
the street. It’s an important thing to do.If you’re
a Wallingford person, and you have to go through
the campus everyday, and you’ve only been waved
to once or twice, it reflects poorly on the school
and it makes people want to classify people here
as bad.”
An New Media for the Conflict
The Facebook group “Choaties Can’t Cross
the Street” was created by local high school students,
“for people who hate how Choaties can’t
cross the…street properly,” according to the group
description. Though some of the three-hundred
thirty-six members echo Lyman Hall sophomore
Lauren D’Angelo’s sentiments, which she posted
on the group’s forum, that “It’s just a joke,” others
take the matter more seriously. Some members
have gone so far as to post threats about running
Choate students over, or have written posts
about the “sickeningly entitled attitudes they all
share.”
Most Choate students, however, view the
creation as merely another extension of a seemingly
endless feud. Olivia Bee’10, a Wallingford
resident and Choate student, said that, “They
[town kids] created the Facebook group as a way
of letting their emotions known and hoping that
some Choaties respond…Even if many are annoyed
by it [the feud], at the end of the day, no
townie is really concerned by it.” Sean Carey’09
went so far as to say, “I think they [the Facebook
groups] are pretty funny. There is some verbal
abuse, but it’s nothing worse than what one would
hear walking around…” However, others share
one anonymous Choate student’s feelings that,
“…it’s really inappropriate [for people] to make
hate groups…to express their anger or dislike
towards something.”
A Group of Choate’s Own
As a form of retaliation, Choate students established
the online group entitled, “Choaties Can
Cross the Street Properly,”geared towards, as the
group description phrases it, “people who are sick
of getting bashed in the other group by people who
can’t spell.” With only around eighty members
as opposed to three-hundred, this group is less
provocative than the original. In fact, some of the
members from both Choate and other Wallingford
high schools have made attempts to reach out to
each other through this group: a member from
Lyman Hall wrote that he “apologize(s) for any
flaming done by ‘Choaties Can’t cross the Street’…
It isn’t representative.” Another Facbook group,
“Choatie-Townie Alliance,” was created by former
Choate student and Wallingford resident Jesse
Newbold, and attemps to bridge the gap between
Choate students and town residents.
Despite the omnipresent tension between
Choaties and local high-school students, the
relationship between the school of Choate and
Wallingford residents is admirable. Choate hosts a
myriad of activities that town residents can attend
and participate in, including student productions,
a road race, use of the track and playing fields,
and sport and art camps. Mr. Ford stated, “For
the most part, I think the relationships between
the town and the school are quite good. It’s a
mutual relationship: we benefit from what the
town offers us, and the town benefits from what
we offer them.”
No Conclusion to the Conflict
One question still remains though: will the
conflict between students ever be resolved? Most
students share Jake Didden ’08’s opinion that “it
will never really be solved because it’s more of a
game than anything else.” However, many feel
that some of the tension could be alleviated if
Choate students simply acted more politely toward
Wallingford residents. For example, McNally
advised that, “It’s important to tip when [one
goes] into restaurants out of courtesy. It’s [also]
rude to talk about the Wallingford people as bad
and to generalize about them, because then the
Wallingford people will generalize about Choate
people.” Despite the longevity of the purported
feud, perhaps it will eventually disappear if students
heed the advice dispensed at every school
meeting by Mr. Ford: “A friendly wave goes a
long way.”
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Choate students hurriedly cross the intersection of Christian and North Elm streets en route to class. PHOTO/Michael Tsai '10
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Street, Wallingford, CT 06492 | Site Designed and Maintained By News Staff
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