I forget why I was walking down First Street on this particular day during my freshman or sophomore year, but one image from that walk stands out.

While passing a house, I heard the distinct “plop” of ping-pong balls, and looked over to see an intense game of what may or may not have been beer pong happening on a porch on an early weekday afternoon.

When my Daily Illini colleague asked me to write about “Senior Land” — located between First Street, Green Street, Oak Street and Gregory Drive – that image is the first that came to my mind.

With such images of day-pong stuck in my head, I went ahead and leased an apartment located a little off First Street between Daniel and Chalmers last year. Though I was a junior, Senior Land was perfect for me.

Location-wise, the area is quite far from the Quad, but still not as far away as the dorm I lived in freshman year, so that was never a big deal. Had I gone a few blocks farther in, that answer would have changed, but busses are helpful in such cases.

Location is really the only thing inherently good or bad about the neighborhood. Beyond that, it’s all about personal taste.

Senior Land of course got its name because of the perception that a lot of seniors live in the area, and they do.

The neighborhood is packed with houses, many of which are designated Greek senior houses. A lot of the houses — and apartments as well — are pretty old, which, when combined with the somewhat-distant location, results in cheaper rents.

I’ll go out on a limb and say cheaper rents matter more to a senior than a sophomore fresh out of the life of a pampered freshman in the dorms (yes, having food made for you and your bathrooms cleaned by someone else makes you pampered).

Being a neighborhood dominated by upperclassmen, Senior Land is laid back and about as “college” of a place as one can find. It is very social in that you seldom worry about noise complaints, because your neighbors are probably being loud as well.

Not that it’s an obnoxiously loud neighborhood — it’s all relative. For me, it didn’t compare to the noise issues I had my sophomore year while living in Urbana, where this one apartment always partied with their windows open and an inexplicable amount of car alarms went off multiple times a night.

There are quiet places to live on campus, and Senior Land probably isn’t one of them, but the social scene makes you feel like you’re actually part of a community, and that’s what I’ll remember most about it.

Now actually a senior, I no longer live in Senior Land — instead I live about a block away. I’ll remember my time spent between First and Locust fondly, but my new apartment has all I need.

It even has a pretty big balcony, on which you may see me when you’re walking by.

“Plop.”

_Kevin Kaplan is a senior in Media._