Teen Scene

Teen Scene: Police Keep an Eye on Popular Hangouts

April 20, 2006
by Keach Hagey

Night was falling softly on Greenwich Avenue. The day had been nearly cloudless, and by 7:45 p.m., the only sign of sunset was the pink airplane contrails, thousands of feet above the mostly shuttered storefronts. Heavy scents of flowering pear and cherry blossom wafted from Greenwich Common. Nearby, in a side alcove of the Board of Education, a boy and a girl sat several feet apart on a low wall under a stone arch.

Just then, a black car pulled diagonally into the nearly empty parking lot and two police offers got out. The two teens hopped down, along with two other friends who had been sitting inside the alcove. After a few minutes of talking to the police, the group headed across the Board of Education lawn toward Starbucks.

"Two of them I know, through past experience. They are frequent fliers on The Avenue."

The teens, most of whom were 14, had gotten away with having "youth cards" written up about them, which will be passed on to the department's youth officers. The "break" was that they didn't get trespassing infractions, which the police have started doling out in recent weeks.

Thus begins the nightly dance between teens and police on Greenwich Avenue on spring nights.

Police started the initiative just before this week's spring break to try to reduce the increased number of complaints they normally get around this time of year, when warm weather and free time draw kids into the downtown shopping district in the evenings.

A block down, a group of seven preppy-looking boys from Greenwich High School had already felt the effects of the increased police presence. They stood in a loose cluster in front of Richards of Greenwich, shuffling back and forth across the sidewalk in their flip-flops. Some had cell phones pressed to their ears; others grumbled among themselves about their own brush with police minutes earlier.

"We were standing there, trying to make plans for tonight, and the police officer pulls up and signals for us to move," said Jeff Tarshis, 15. "If we were boisterous, obnoxious, or making a scene, I could understand, but we were just calling people."

Adash Polonia, 15, added that he wished there was "somewhere for us to go."When asked if he thought Arch Street teen center fulfilled this role, he said: "No high schoolers go there. It ended in middle school."

The real problem, the teens said, is being 15 years old, and therefore carless. "You are caught in the middle between hanging out with older kids and calling Safe Rides," Tarnis said, referring to the free, confidential transportation service for teens that operates Friday and Saturday nights between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.

A group of four teenage boys hanging out by the crossing sign at Greenwich and Railroad avenues had similar complaints.
"Since we're too young to drive, there's not really anything to do," said Beau Brunelli, 15, a GHS sophomore. "If we had a car, we'd go to New Roc City," an entertainment and shopping complex in New Rochelle, N.Y.

In the absence of wheels, he said he goes over to Starbucks, or to a movie on The Avenue. That night, Wednesday, he and three friends were hanging out on that corner, waiting for friends to get out of a movie in Stamford and take
the train down to Greenwich to meet them for dinner.

Going out to dinner was the main activity for several of the groups of teens who were out enjoying the warm weather. Five freshmen girls from Greenwich High School standing outside Starbucks around 8:30 p.m. had just come from
dinner at Abis Japanese Traditional Restaurant, one of their favorite haunts.

"Abis, Thataway (Cafe), Sundown Saloon, these are the places where you can be loud," said Riley Johnson, 14.

Any hanging out on The Avenue they do these days is usually done coming or going to one of these places, they said, since now they are in high school and past the age when "The Ave" was an activity in itself. "In seventh and eighth grade, it was like the coolest thing to do," said Anna-Lee Stafford, 14.

They try to avoid The Avenue on weekend nights after 9:30 p.m. in the spring, they said, because that's when problems happen, particularly in the park and in front of the Board of Education. "We try to stay away from the areas that are sketchy," said Sofia Dubaz, 15, referring to the park, where several of the girls believe drug deals are common.

Later in the evening, across the street from Richards, another group of teens was sitting on a low wall, listening to head phones and greeting passersby.

"The Ave sucks," said Kelsey Curley, 16, an ARCH School student whose long brown hair was tucked under an Oakland A's hat, slightly askew. "It's so boring."

It wasn't always the case, she said. Before the police started breaking up groups of kids hanging out, it was a good time. "Two or three years ago, you didn't even have to call people, you would just see people," she said, her bellybutton ring gleaming.

"They wonder why there are so many problems," said Bryce Ferrara, 16. "They need to have something for us to do."

But what was old hat for the high school students was, at that very same moment, brand new and exciting to the middle schoolers.

Across the street, just before 9:30 p.m., a pack of Central Middle School students - four of them paired off and holding hands, were loping down the street in front of The Gap.

"If you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, people like to go hang out in the park," said Jeff Ritchie, 12, a seventh-grader. Several said it was their third time hanging out on The Avenue that week. But it might have been the last for at least one.

Just then, a black SUV pulled up to the corner and 13-year-old Beau Spadaro's mother rolled down the window. "You said you were going to see a movie," she said, not pleased. "Why did I drop you off in front of the movie theater?"

Several explanations were offered, all having to do with some other friend who was not there.

By about 9:35 p.m., it appeared that Spadaro's hand-holding stroll with Britni Longo, 12, who he said had been his girlfriend for three and a half weeks, was over.