Louie Marven, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central PA, is tired of hearing the phrase, “What’s in the water at Messiah?”
“Oh my god,” he mimics sarcastically while sipping on a Nugget Nectar ale, “another gay person that went to Messiah and lives in Harrisburg?”
But the question, “What’s in the water at Messiah College?” can be applied to more groups than just the gay community. There are lots of us settling down here.
Marven, ’07, is one of countless graduates who moved to the Sycamore House, an intentional Christian service corps, after graduation. While he hesitates to categorize himself as a “Messiah shill,” Marven admits that it was attractive to stay local, with friends who were staying local, to live and work in community together—one of Messiah’s big thrusts.
Nearly six years later, Marven says he finally feels like a Harrisburg citizen who happened to go to Messiah rather than a Messiah grad living in Harrisburg. “I think it can feel very forceful that we’re this sort of army,” he says, “and I don’t want to be a part of that.”
On the other hand, Marven thinks that Messiah’s supposed “city takeover” is overstated. “It’s a local college, and it’s the closest city. It’s not that weird.”
Indeed, Messiah students long have moved into Harrisburg after graduation. (An amusing confirmation of this came when two of my interviewees bonded over annoyances about their respective Messiah-bred landlords). And in a small city like Harrisburg, we can’t help but cross paths.
But for many fresh graduates, Harrisburg—especially in Midtown and Uptown—is starting to feel like campus, minus the hanging baskets. There are a couple of caffeine hubs where everyone does their homework (job searching), a few small restaurants where they spend their flex dollars (savings), taverns within biking distance that serve adult fountain drinks, and places like the Sycamore House and The MakeSpace, where give-or-take 20-somethings can dine potluck style or catch a live performance.
So, were these hotspots mapped out on diploma backs? Or is there something else going on here?
Growing Network
While Messiah-gration isn’t new, it’s clear that we are connecting and clustering much more visibly than before.
Take Hana Grosh, ’12, who moved to the city seven months ago after feeling a bit nostalgic for her college life and a bit stymied in Lancaster, where her family lives. I see her working her barista magic at Little Amps on Green and State streets. She’ll see my boyfriend, ’09, at band practice and my good friend Liz Laribee, ’07, at the back shop table most days of the week. Laribee is an artist who led the founding of The MakeSpace, a studio, gallery and concert venue situated in Olde Uptown.
A table or three away from Laribee sits Dave Robertson, ’00, who operates a web design business called Factory 44. For years, he was very involved with the civic organization Friends of Midtown. “I was here before it was cool,” he volunteers proudly for a laugh.
“You’re the reason we started The MakeSpace,” says Laribee. “I had about eight ideas brewing at once, and you encouraged me to focus on one at a time, starting with an art center.”
This sort of rap session isn’t unique to certain personalities or to environments with psychedelic tables (we were at Ted’s Bar & Grill; rest in peace, Brick City). Instead, it demonstrates how a growing alumni network has been functioning well in the city.
“Even if I hadn’t known people before moving,” says Marven, “there were mechanisms for meeting them.” Something as simple as a free darts and pool night at Appalachian Brewing Co., advertised through the grapevine, made newcomers feel connected.
“I don’t know how I would have tried to make friends without knowing what previous Messiah people did,” he says.
For example, almost every Messiah student I’ve run into has at least heard of the Sycamore House, if not attended an event or actually lived there for a year. (As a sophomore, I remember sitting on the creaky floor for some benefit concert wondering if this is what a rockin’ house party looked like in the real world.)
Laribee, who helped start the Sycamore House and who lived there between her junior and senior years, saw how easy it was to get involved in the city, thanks to a friend she met through juggling club. She began volunteering at the Center for Champions and moved back into the Sycamore House with Marven after graduation.
While some Sycamore alumni have communicated their frustrations with the program’s growing pains, it continues to offer free housing in exchange for community service pursuits, which is a pretty excellent deal. And for someone like Marven who was helping to write the rules and form the board early on, the program was an invaluable way to find a job in Harrisburg and assist in the formation of the LGBT Center.
Inevitable Intimacy
For Marven and Laribee, the city has certainly provided great resources for growth and creativity, but it can also get tiring after awhile. “Harrisburg is a fascinating, enriching, endless blank canvass for me to figure out how I like to pursue development, creativity and grassroots projects,” says Laribee. “But being so involved here means that there’s a lot to do. As easy as it is to feel you’re in community here, you can also feel trapped.”
Paul Boyed, ’13, who lives within snowball-throwing distance of Laribee, Grosh and me, has started to feel a bit trapped by this inevitable intimacy. “The world that Messiah students live in in Harrisburg is kind of like the activities in college,” he says. He points to the coffee shops and alternative music scenes occupied by local young people.
Boyed lived in Harrisburg his senior year because it was much more affordable than living on campus. Now as a Children’s Targeted Case Manager for Dauphin County, a position he heard about through the Messiah grapevine, Boyed says he’s becoming more frustrated with Harrisburg’s dichotomy of socioeconomic experiences.
“I hear the complaints of people who live here—there are bigger problems,” he says. “But then, when I’m in my own life, it’s peppy, fun. The bigger picture of Harrisburg is the school district. It’s exhausting.”
Henok Begashaw, ’11, works with Boyed as a targeted case manager, and, like Boyed, wrestles with the positives and negatives of the conspicuous Messiah bubble. “The whole point of the city is to attract young people, [but] I hope that people come in and that they’re very aware of the people and space that were here,” he says. “A lot of Messiah alums move to Harrisburg with a missionary mentality. That can be a good thing; that can also be a bad thing.”
Begashaw lived at Messiah’s Harrisburg Institute his senior year and then at the Sycamore House after graduation. Institute/SALT Program Director Ashley Sheaffer, ’06, who remembers Begashaw causing an appropriate amount of mischief during his time there, sees a trend for many students who spend a semester in the city. “They deepen their understanding of the forces at play in a city and become acutely aware of their privilege, while genuinely developing a heart for Harrisburg,” she says. “Most students,” she clarifies, “not all.”
Marven himself remembers that aha moment of discovering the city with friends, and it seemed “a little bit imperialistic for a lot of people,” he admits. Except, then again, Harrisburg was where students, particularly LGBT students, knew to seek community because it was more open, he says.
Project opportunities and left-wing safe spaces aside, students seem to like Harrisburg for its “platform city” feel. Fewer amenities aren’t always a bad thing, and many transplants eventually want to call what was once a platform for better prospects “home.”
“Philly was so big I couldn’t take a bite out of it,” says Katie Manzullo-Thomas, ’10, who moved to Philadelphia after graduation, but is now living in Olde Uptown. “I would rather live in a city with two Little Amps instead of 15 amazing coffee houses. You couldn’t show up somewhere [in Philly] and see someone you know—unlike here.”
And, for Grosh, whose Ethiopian heritage has always inspired her to work with coffee, a part-time barista income can go a long way in Harrisburg. It nearly covers her rent, and she’s able to use her downtime for projects that she cares about—writing and playing music, modeling for Stash Collective, baking for Little Amps, auditioning at Carley’s.
She acknowledges, though, that working part-time isn’t by choice, and that living this way doesn’t facilitate any savings, an ever-increasing problem facing Millennials. Nevertheless, Grosh is grateful to be in a city that is accessible and artistically minded.
“I think Harrisburg has a lot to offer if you really want it to,” she says. “I needed it to be a platform for something bigger [at first], but I don’t want to be waiting on the next best thing. It’s not like you’re biding your time here—you’re making the best of it.”
Samantha Moore, a 2010 Messiah grad, lives in Olde Uptown.
