The Anchor Bar and Restaurant has been one of the few remaining and well-loved local establishments in New Haven, and a place that most of us thought was safe from the slow homogenization/gentrification that Yale University has been imposing on our hometown. Previous victims have included the Daily Caffe, the Copper Kitchen and many, many others. Yale seems to think that trading local businesses for another Starbucks or frozen yogurt chain will make Yale students more comfortable, and feel safe in our apparently frightening, terrible city- but in fact, the result has been a decline in town/gown goodwill, Yale alums no longer recognizing the place they lived in and loved, and a once culturally thriving, unique city now resembling little more than a strip mall. How many places remain in New Haven where Yalies, townies, celebrities, punks, tourists, wealthy, poor would all gather together as friends- where a visit there would almost always result in a new friendship? Very few- the Anchor wasn't just a bar or a local business; it was much, much more than that.

We all have our special memories of the Anchor- I would hang out there with the previous owner, Marshall Moore and he would tell me stories about old jazz and big band musicians, and the time he met Bunny Berigan. My fiancee has memories of going there for lunch with her mom when her mom worked at the Macy's downtown. There are so many of these kinds of cherished memories, from so many people- townies, Yale students and alums.

Yale- you can't bring back the cultural damage and communities you disrupted by closing the Daily and other places, but you have the chance to stop this behavior now, before you completely lose the goodwill of the people who live here.

It might already be a lost cause for the Anchor- but if enough of us speak up and say we've had enough, that we are tired of our city being drained of its life and personality, maybe this can end here and now.