Midwestern chic

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Tucked into a booth below a flat-screen television featuring the Chicago Bandits against the New England Riptide, a flimsy paper sign with “U of C Alumni” scrawled across it designated the nerve center of the fourth young-alumni happy hour in as many months. Marc DeMoss, AB’03, and Erin Onsager, AB’03, manned a table watching for anyone who “looked U of C,” Onsager said. By 7:30 a group of alumni gathered upstairs at the downtown Rockit Bar, where exposed brick, exposed pipes, and exposed limbs provided the decor. “We don’t have the official U of C nametags because Erin left them at home,” DeMoss explained to David King, AM’04, one of the ten or so alumni who stopped by. DeMoss had gone to Kinko’s and bought tags with maroon borders before the event, and he asked each new arrival to sign in on a clipboard, which by the end of the night boasted Jacques Chirac as an attendee.

As alumni drifted to a nearby pool table, DeMoss took a break from meeting and greeting and sipped his $10 mojito. Frowning and looking down at his glass, he remarked, “It’s not very strong for how expensive it was.” Onsager shot back, “Well, this is no Jimmy’s.”

By popular request, the next alumni happy hour is slated for September 8 in Hyde Park—at Jimmy’s.

Meredith Meyer, ’06

Photo: DeMoss, Onsager, and their expensive drinks.

August 17, 2005