The People of State College Part Thirteen: The Missing Undergrads

I miss New York City and I am very happy that next weekend I will be back there...

But...

One of the best things about State College during the Summer is how few people there are here. PSU has 40,000 students, but almost all of them have gone home for the Summer. This is a city designed for a much larger population. It now appears empty.

Of course, not just students have left. Some of the restaurants and shops seem to have closed down for the Summer as well. Or so I thought. It turns out that the restaurants work in shifts. The ones that look abandoned during the day apparently thrive at night. Usually, these restaurants only have three or four menu items. They are scrawled in dry-erase marker on a menu behind the counter. The employees sit outside smoking or drinking until a customer comes by. The hours are indeterminate: 8pm-late night, where late night is code for "when we get bored." No effort has gone into making the restaurants presentable and they could aptly be described as sketcherific. Which explains why they are only open at night. They prey on people too drunk to care.