The room is packed. Music is pumping. Dozens of beer taps run the length of the wall.
Barbara Natalizio, a fifth-year graduate student in molecular genetics and microbiology, bends over the maroon pool table. Eyeing the cue ball, she lines up to send the 11-ball packing into the corner pocket.
She misses.
But hey, there will be plenty of other shots. She laughs, picks up her beer and saunters back over to her friends, half-heartedly dancing.
This is Saturday night at Tyler's Speakeasy in the American Tobacco Complex. It's buzzing with Duke graduate students who are part of Natalizio's MGM program.
At least on her side of Tyler's.
Just a few feet away from the Speakeasy is the restaurant portion of the establishment, where the crowd is distinctly older and more Durham.
The two sections of Tyler's are different worlds.
The establishment is partitioned by a wall, but many other divisions are at work as well.
Even at local bars, with their lubricated conversations, most Duke students and Durham residents do not see town-gown tensions that exist in other aspects of their lives dissipating. "We don't really make new friends," Natalizio admitted. "I think most people keep to themselves. There's the Duke crew and the non-Duke crew."
For undergraduates, pretty much everything students need can be found on campus. This fact, coupled with the complex road system and sizable tracts of forest in and around the University, keeps the campus insulated.
Many students and Durham residents said this insularity is a major contributing factor to the debated but recognized town-gown divide.
But there is one thing students have to leave campus to find: bars.
Although the Armadillo Grill is known to serve up a tasty margarita, most students seem to prefer to venture off campus to quench their thirst for a bar scene.
Unlike the Speakeasy, not every Durham bar has such a mix of Duke students and Durham residents.
Many students commented on the marked difference between a weekend night at Shooters II and a weekday "off-night." During the week, it is a Durham bar packed with local residents. But come Thursday, Friday or Saturday night, student groups often rent out the space, and the weekday clientele is hardly there.
Some students said they feel more comfortable going to bars where there are a lot of their peers.
"If you are a Duke student, you are so much more likely to go to Shooters or Devine's [Restaurant and Sports Bar], because they cater to Duke students," said Durham resident Kyle McLaughlin, Trinity '04.
But McLaughlin said she prefers Joe and Jo's, a cramped, friendly dive bar downtown with a relatively even mix of Dukies and Durham residents.
Betsy-Shane Rosenblum, a junior, agrees. "It just seems like Duke endorses certain places for us to go," she said.
She placed her observation in the broader context of town-gown relations.
"I think Duke has the biggest fault in [messing] up Duke-Durham relations," she said. "By the way, I am a die-hard Durham fan."
A few blocks away, Durham resident Kristen Hill spends a lot of time hanging out with her friends in the the Down Under Pub, staying at the back where the speakers are not so deafening.
She cherishes the atmosphere of the small, loud and smoky room. Hill would rather like the place to stay the way it is, and she does not like it when Dukies crowd the pub. "This is a dive bar," Hill said. "There are regulars who are here all year. When students fill the bar, the regulars feel like they are being pushed out. There is a lot of resentment. I am not sure it's a mature reaction, but for some reason there is a certain level of animosity. I'm not sure why, but people clash."
This seems to be a recurring theme of Duke-Durham relations, on the bar scene and perhaps beyond: Dukies and Durham locals see themselves as different, and no one can really agree on why or how to remedy the resulting tensions.
Students who stumble into the Durham community searching for a good cocktail may not be finding solutions to the problems of Duke-Durham relations, but they are seeing and hearing them.
And they're always glad they came.
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