When Your Dorm Room Is La Quinta Inn

Cathar...They remodeled the back dining room when the new owners took over. The wall that separated the bar from the dining room which is now all spindles had the mural on it on the dining room side. They never remodeled the bar area, Thank God! They did take out the pissoir trough in the men'sroom

Cathar...They remodeled the back dining room when the new owners took over. The wall that separated the bar from the dining room which is now all spindles had the mural on it on the dining room side. They never remodeled the bar area, Thank God! They did take out the pissoir trough in the men's room.
Posted by PAZ | July 14, 2008 8:52 A

Cathar...for some reason my reply went to the top of the thread! Check above about the remodeling at Rutt's after Mama Rutt sold the business AND the secret relish recipe.

That is true cathar, they have soaked through the double bag all mine too. (and I used to go at least once a week and take my mother to the dining room once a month)
The soaking through the box onto the floor was not an exaggeration and what was different. Other than the relish, it ain't the same, so once a year.

Walleroo! Quick! Let's talk to Liz about building a 1,000 room marsupial dorm under her porch.

And, I challenge the Baristaville wags to come up with an appropriate name for such an august academic community...

-- The Marlboro (and Salems, Winstons, Kools, etc.) Inn

-- Hartnett House of Horrors

-- THC Towers

... you get the idea.

When I first started at MSU in 2002, I think only half the buildings on campus now were already there. Now it's a completely different school. Here's a good one: I think we had say, around 10,000 - 8,000 parking spots when I first started - parking was $35 a year. Now I think there are probably 2,000 parking spots (I'm really guessing but it is that drastic) and parking costs $150 a year (this is not including the parking decks which cost $200+ for a pass this year). Susan A. Cole really wants to be famous, I think, and keeps making that school bigger. But really, I guess I wish there were a sweet recreation center when I was attending the school, I am just jealous. Here's something else that's crazy - The Village on MSU's campus, where I lived for a year, cost me $995 a month! And that's what it cost my 3 other roommates - $4000 for one apartment!!! The next year I rented a cute apartment in Montclair with the same amount of room less money (actually, half price since I split the rent with Mark), only I don't have to share this one with three bitches.

$150 for parking for the full year? The semesters are 15 weeks long, so that amounts to $5 per week across 2 semesters. The $35 per year cost was a steal, and the current price doesn't seem prohibitive.

Don't fret about someone trying to make the school bigger and better. The perceived value of your degree will increase if the school's reputation and profile improve.

yes katie. Bitches ruin the quality of life at home. you could not have said it better. I remember MSU being real small, with the haunted senior apartments on clove rd. There was a huge Quarry that we would drink and light fires. I never attended MSU, but security was lacking and we could pretty much roam free around campus. Again, great call on living with Bitches, although having 3 of them could be entertaining

@ Spicoli

Good point. there is a train station there too. Any student without a car can easily sell that pass for $300 to a NYC commuter

re-purpose an empty Roche building?

katie, when I went to Mason Gross (the arts school at Rutgers), they didn't have their own dorms. So I lived in a house on Douglass, the all-women's campus, which was next to the music school.

Holy crap. I never knew women could be so vicious! There were about 16 girls in the house, and most of them would just sit around in the living room gossiping about whoever wasn't there. I was taking a full course load, working part time, going to hear music in the city, and gigging, so I wasn't around much--and most of my friends were guys. So apparently they decided that I was, "like, a TOTAL slut!!"

In any event, I'm quite sure I was having more fun than they were.

Still, I moved off campus after my freshman year. [shudder]

Will meal cards work at the Red Robin?

When I went to NYU for undergrad, they were still building all their new dorms. In sophmore year, they offered students the choice of dorming at The Seville hotel (always advertised back in the day with the Collingwood). I took the dorm with the condition of getting a single (I did). I lived there for a year and had a queen size bed with a marble bathroom. It was weird but cool.

In providence we were gauranteed freshman housing, but after that, all of us moved into apartments and multifamily homes. My share of an 8 bedroom, 4 bath home was $250 a month! Parking was city prices though. most would do day parking for $15, or $350 a month in the garage. $150 a year next to a train is way too low, even for poor college kids

I hear you Kate. I did two years at Mason Gross and I got stuck in a Cook College dorm right next door to Douglass. At first I was pumped because I heard the ratio on Cook/Douglass campus was like 7:1, women to men, but I quickly found the women to be pretentious, shallow, and matching the all-girl-school stereotypes. The only good part about that campus was the disc golf course, but too much time spent there put a nasty dent in my GPA. I actually finished in Newark and found most students there were more mature and much more focused on their studies.

If the point of residing at a college, even a traditionally "commuter" one like Montclair State, is to take part in campus life, then a dorm down Rte. 3 or five miles anyway in any direction kind of negates that attraction.

That said, does Montclair State in fact have anything approaching campus life? In so many ways already, after all, the school is not exsctly Clemson or Florida State.

You'd be surprised cathar. The MSU campus feels much more like a big school campus than it used to.

Cant wait for (a certain Barista)to comment on where (she went to school) and (how much) her kids are paying for parking

If they are going to turn La Quinta into temporary dorms for these kids, why not turn Rutt's Hut into a temporary cafeteria? The hut is only a minute or so walk from the motel. Rippers three meals a day sounds like a dream come true.

Puss, you have seen Super Size Me right?

If they are housing students near the Red Robin, I sure hope they plan on beefing up security in that parking lot. I read about at least two stolen/broken-into cars there each week. And as a Douglass College alum, let me say that not all the girls that attended were pretentious or shallow. There were plenty like that there, as there were on Rutgers main campus, as there are on any campus, but there were also some very smart and thoughtful individuals as well.

Gotta agree with Cathar here. Five miles seems awfully far away to locate an official campus building, especially a dorm. (Though at Rutgers-NB, you could easily drive five miles and still be on campus -- and at peak traffic times it might take you an hour to do so.)

Maybe I'll rent out a few houses in Erwin Park to college kids. I could do quite a business - Ackme encourages loud, rockin' keg parties. I'm only thinking of the profits on this...

When I took evening graduate courses in the 80's, I often had to park in the quarry and that sometimes felt like I was walking five miles to get to classes. It was quite a trek!

Living with a man is sooooo much better than living with girls. Much easier to get along with. There were so many problems in that apartment, by the end of the year none of us spoke to each other and our dishes were absolutely disgusting (looking back, I realize we had a dishwasher, I miss having a dishwasher). Eventually one of my roommates, Derya, had her friend, Leilani, living on our couch (she didn't ask us). But that was fine with me, Leilani did the dishes for rent. I still talk to Derya, who was a random roommate assigned to our apartment - the other two I was good friends with before living with them, but we no longer talk. Anyone else have that problem? I will say I do not miss them.

"Puss, you have seen Super Size Me right?"

That whole "fast food is bad for you" is just a load of nonsense.

The quarry is where the Village apartments are now, but I remember when it was a quarry too, not long ago. There is a cliff we would climb over there to drink beers, and look over at the apartments - it was pretty nice.

In nice weather I would walk to class from there too, Nellie, it's not as bad as it could be if you know all the shortcuts - but it's alllll up hill.

katie, I think that living with friends can be a good way not to be friends anymore!

I had such a string of insane roommates for a while in college (yes, I'm sure that says something about me too) that I eventually decided to just live in a closet-sized studio by myself.

Maybe the best one was the flamboyant 'gay' guy who would try to climb into my bed uninvited and also attempted to make out with me several times. He was the last one before the studio!

My favorite roommate moment had to be when one of the girls in my apartment said "don't worry if you hear snorting sounds out here, I just got a little coke to help me study for finals."

Puss, have you seen how fat America is?

Don Gorske was in Super Size Me, he is probably immune to it after 20,000 Big Macs. So I guess we just need to eat McDonalds everyday and we'll be healthy like Don.

Who approves these expenditures? The school will likely set the room rate (can't really be free market, can it?), and the Developers will get a Guarantee from the School. What bank would finance this without? Do we (anybody?) know how much they (MSU) are in debt already? ($50 Million? $80 Million?)How'd they build those buildings, at the revenue model they have (tuition/state aid)?
"Rent to own" sounds like this deal, except there is never the "rent" part, without collateral, and that is...your Taxes!

In all fairness, maybe 5 miles isn't that far. I once visited someone who coached at the University of South Carolina, damn place seemed bigger than Army bases where I'd been posted and it was miles from classroom buildings to playing fields.

But all of it was campus. That is not the situation with Montclair State and the La Quinta and the Red Robin down the highway.

(And the suggestion that Rutt's serve as a dining hall was brilliant. But Rutt's does serve a real breakfast too, complainerpuss, 10 or so different omelets.)

Each Big Mac has 30 grams of fat AND over a gram of sodium. What else does that guy eat? Oatmeal or wheat germ by the gallon?

I interviewed Gorske once. He only eats Big Macs. Nothing else. His wife once made him a steak, and he hated it. He even keeps Big Macs in the freezer, just in case there's a snowstorm.

The first time I heard about him was when I saw Supersize Me. Unreal. I think they said in the movie that his cholesterol was 150. He must have good genes, that's all I can say.

LOL...I just went to his Wiki entry and it says he proposed to his wife in a McDonald's parking lot!

RaeVen, my appologies to the smart and thoughtful women at Douglass. I'm sure both of you were very nice ;)

"Rutt's does serve a real breakfast too, complainerpuss, 10 or so different omelets"

MMMMhhmmmm, deep fried omelets, doesn't get any better than that!

Nice, SSP. :) By the way, what is disc golf?

"re-purpose an empty Roche building?"

I like that idea, RealHawker.

disc golf, I think, is a bunch of poles (perhaps 18) spread around a park. you get small frisbees and have to hit the poles with them. correct?

I've heard Ruts Hut is closing and that a developer bought the land and is building condos.

Joke? no
Travesty? yes

Please say it ain't so. Babe Ruth himself used to chow down there.

Every time I'm there, there is at least one party in "from the provinces" for the first time, taking pictures (or asking me to take their picture for them)), buying t-shirts, ordering Rippers. People who've read about Rutt's in assorted books, who've seen it either on PBS or the Food Network. This place is a huge draw. It's even pictured on calendars.

There is nothing like Rutt's anywhere else in Jersey. (There used to be, but that's another story.) There is nothing like Rutt's in neighboring states, either. So if this is true, it should be stopped. ASAP. God, now I'm weeping.....

(It'd also be an awfully lousy neigborhood for condos.)

I'd like to ripper the developers a new one.

My father brought me there in the 50's. I turned my daughter on to it in the 90's and if this is true (Deb/Liz???)I'll really be down!

No..they can't be closing rutt's hut! I took my niece there for her 6th bday to make sure she had real American food. My brother adopted her from Khazakhstan(sp) and I couldn't think of a better way to introduce her to real food.

I heard back in the day, Rutt's had their own recipe for hot dogs, made just for them. Even though I have been going there since the rents took me in the sixties, never found out if that was true (I know they use Thuman's deep fried now, talking then) . Definitely it's more nostalgia than reality, even if my sister makes me ship here relish once a year.

Rutt's is the only relish I'll eat.

Regarding Rutts...from the munchmobile blog on 5/24/08.

"Then we headed to Rutt's Hutt in Clifton, home of the deep-fried dogs known as rippers, and a healthy dose of Jersey hot dog attitude.

"On the record - Rutt's Hut is not closing. Rutt's Hutt will never close,'' co-owner John Karagiorgis proclaimed.

Apparently, there had been rumors floating around in hot dog cyberspace that Rutt's Hut was about to shut down, for good. Not true, according to Karagiorgis."

also...

"This just in: Nothing to report
The Record and Herald News both carried a story on Page One today that Rutt's Hut is not closing. It must have been a slow news day."

Don't kid yourself, Rutt's ain't Rutt's anymore, just a ghost of what was there. Memories taste good, but that's about all.

and that's to say, I still do the annual Rutt's pilgrimage :)

Pokey, you only go ONCE a year?

As someone who can recall going there as far back as age 5, however, I assure you, it's pretty much the same. (I think the waitresses all cut deals with the devil to remain so "pleasantly youthful" and to keep their arches on their in their forever-fallen state.) The food and the decor are both constants. Especially in the men's room!

Supposedly, analysis of Rutt's dogs once revealed that the "secret" of of their ripped texture was a mixture of beef, pork and veal. Whether or not that's true, Rutt's was once quite a bit lower than it is today, was directly on the Passaic River shore. That entire section of River Road was built up during the construction of Route 21. Thus today's "elevated" hot dog shrine (which once had two similar places next to it for company, Neilley's and Bertlin's, the latter lasting into the 70's).

"their arches on their feet..."

When they remodeled,I wished the new owners of Rutt's had left the fox hunt mural up with all the beagles....a masterpiece!

Just so y'all know:
"La Quinta" is Spanish for "The Quinta"

/happy to drop in to help!

Cathar, when the onion rings to go soak thru the double paper bag and the cardboard carry box, dripping on the ground before you get out the door, it's time to cut back.

"I'll take a ripper, a weller,one frenchie with gravy, a Marvis and a taxi on the shakes!"

Pokey, the onion rings have soaked through the double to-go bags ALL of my life.

PAZ, I recall no fox hunt mural, though I may be wrong. I do, however, remember a 10-foot stuffed sailfish on the far wall in the back dining room. When did Rutt's ever "remodel," come to think of it? Friends' carved initials are still on the bar.

disc golf is pretty much what jimmytown said. There's a large round metal basket around the pole to catch the frisbee and a series of chains that hang down from the top of the pole to absorb the shock and help keep the disc from popping back out. You can use any frisbee really but the discs made for golf are small heavy discs for long distance and a variety of sizes and shapes for putting. The course is out the back door of the Woodbury dorm as you walk towards the pond.
Rutgers Disc Golf Course
Cubby hitting a hole in one at Rutgers #4

I'm going to clear up a few things...

1) MSU has opened 11 new buildings since 2002, give or take. They've got the renovation to Chapin and a new dorm on Clove Road in progress. While half the buildings are not new, upwards of 20% are.

2) MSU isn't "turning" LaQuinta into anything. They've made a business deal with the hotel. Not sure if they're breaking even on that one.

3) The village is on a former quarry, but that land was acquired recently specifically for putting up those buildings. It's not on "the quarry" some of you may know, which is the area north of the power lines and east of Clove Road.

4) Yes, living in the village is a ripoff. 4 people could rent a house at those rates.

5) Tip-to-tail, MSU property is roughly 1.25 miles long and 232 acres. 5 miles isn't that far if you're on the highway with no traffic, but 5 miles to the north is Paterson and to the South is West Orange. It could realistically take upwards of a half hour to get to campus from some places 5 miles away.

6) What they're talking about is similar to University Centre in Newark, which seems to be doing quite well.

7) MSU is one of the top 15 most leveraged schools in the nation. That includes public and private institutions. I don't recall the exact number, but it was in a report published not too long ago.

Cathar...They remodeled the back dining room when the new owners took over. The wall that separated the bar from the dining room which is now all spindles had the mural on it on the dining room side. They never remodeled the bar area, Thank God! They did take out the pissoir trough in the men's room.
Posted by PAZ | July 14, 2008 8:52 A Cathar...for some reason my reply went to the top of the thread! Check above about the remodeling at Rutt's after Mama Rutt sold the business AND the secret relish recipe.