Ground Zero could save South Residential College

Don’t let the haunted exterior fool you: Ground Zero is still open … sometimes. 

There’s no food or drinks at the Ground Zero Performance Café, despite the ads depicting tea and coffee in the darkened windows. The building stands skeletal, buried between the dorms of South Residential College. Otherwise dead during the week, it revives zombie-like for weekly Open Mic Nights; on Mondays from 9 to 11 p.m., the space fills with the rustlings of a pitifully small crowd which grows ever scarcer as the night advances — unsurprising when it’s the same four acts each week, and there’s nothing edible to incentivize students into coming. 

Before 2017, Ground Zero functioned as both a performance space and an actual café, serving coffee, tea and snacks, but most importantly — their famous milkshakes. However, the student-run business closed that year for renovations and has yet to return to its former glory. As reported by the Daily Trojan, the year-long remodel was originally set to include improvements of the coffee bar and the installation of bathrooms. However, a lack of food credentials and general inaction on the University’s part left Ground Zero a shell of its former self. 

Sept. 11 to to early November — otherwise known as USC’s reassignment period — witnessed an exodus of students desperate to make other living arrangements. From where did they flee? South Residential College’s dorms: Pardee Tower, Marks Hall, Marks Tower and Trojan Hall. What the buildings lack in air conditioning, they make up for in shortage of room and overall mediocrity. EVK — quaint as it is — doesn’t compare to upper-crust Parkside and Hogwarts-esque USC Village Dining Hall. And for these luxuries, students pay an arm, a leg and $4,808. 

For McCarthy Honors Residential College, there’s USC Village. For Parkside Residential Colleges, there’s outdoor seating, firepits and proximity to campus restaurants. Ground Zero is the only thing South has — and it amounts to an utter joke. 

Having entrusted USC with the keys to both their futures and bank accounts, students deserve some level of parity, regardless of their dorm situation. Otherwise, the University is swindling money from students’ pockets with unequal levels of return. 

This behavior is unsurprising given the University’s history of unethical conduct. In addition to the ongoing admissions investigation, USC has recently been accused of coercing restaurants Rance’s Chicago Pizza and BBCM into above-market leases under fraudulent pretenses. While the lawsuit has yet to reach its conclusion, the implied pattern of criminality doesn’t do USC’s struggling image any favors.

USC owes it to the student of South Residential College to establish a semblance of equality — and Ground Zero’s restoration is the first step. Not only could the addition of food items increase student jobs and traffic to an otherwise desolate area, but it would return much-needed pride to South students. 

Admittedly, not everyone can have the best. But at a university where attendance costs total a gigantuan $77,459 per year, there should be a certain expectation of quality.