As I started college at the UW in Madison, I couldn’t wait to move out of my parents’ house and into my own apartment. But I can only imagine what my parents were thinking when I moved into an apartment above the Kollege Keg.
Many of my friends who went to the UW lived in a campus dorm during their freshman year. I decided to live at home, in part to save money. But also dorm life didn’t seem very appealing to me having grown up with my brother and sister as roommates.
I got lucky during my second semester, when my older brother took a break from college to travel the world and I was able to sublet his one-bedroom flat on Kendall Avenue. Living alone was better than living at home–but not by much–as many nights were spent alone studying. My grades were good but my social life was non-existent.
A Two-Bedroom Apartment Above the Kollege Keg
So as my sophomore year approached, I got together with three high school classmates: Bill Rieser, Bob Curry, and Jim Grindrod. We were ecstatic to find a cheap two-bedroom apartment at 320 North Randall Avenue, right in the middle of campus.
And the bonus was that the apartment was above the Kollege Keg (not to be confused with the more popular Kollege Klub (AKA the “KK”). My social life was bound to get better, but at what cost?
The entrance to the building looked like a keg (thus the name). The door on the left went to the bar and the door on the right went up to our second-story apartment.
Our landlord was Charlie Magestro and the rent was $240/month (about $1,700 in 2024 dollars). Although it was listed as a two-bedroom apartment, the lease said that the “Attic may be used for storage.”
With a wink and a nod, Charlie implied that what we did after we moved in was up to us. So the day after moving in, Bill and I dragged our mattresses up to the 3rd story attic and Jim and Bob each had their own bedroom on the 2nd floor. We didn’t notice at that time that there were no heat ducts to the attic.
A Communal Test Kitchen
This was the first time for all of us living in an apartment, so we had a few things to figure out. The first was our meal plan. We decided to share food in the refrigerator, putting receipts into a jar. But this approach didn’t last long, as the refrigerator was mostly empty. And we also discovered that Bob’s unique tastes in food (e.g., sardines, yogurt) were not shared by the rest of us. Jim was working at Bagels Forever, and overwhelmed us with garbage bags filled with bagels nearly every night.
It did not take long before all the dishes ended up dirty in the sink. If you wanted to eat something, you had to wash a dish first.
The Noisiest Apartment in Madison
Bob described the apartment recently in an email to me: “That damned place was the absolute noisiest apartment in Madison on a tiny block between two four-lane roads; above a bar where the jukebox thumped until they had swabbed the floors at 2:30 AM; next door to McDonalds, which had burger and bun delivery at 2:45 AM. The semi would pull up and continue running while the guy operated the elevator lowering racks of buns to the street. The dumpster picked up the McDonalds’ trash at 3:30 AM followed by the bar dumpster pickup at 4:00 AM.”
“The sirens were constant: the old UW hospital emergency room was across University Ave., about 200 ft. away, and the old number 4 fire station was a block away at Dayton and Randall. To top it all off, separated from our ears by 30 yards of asphalt was a fucking train track. I would wake up with the windows rattling, the train noise roaring over me like a smoking colossus.”
A Party House
It did not take long for the apartment to gain the reputation as a party house. Friends (and people we didn’t know) would stop into the bar for a drink and walk upstairs to our living room. Every so often one of the bartenders would knock on our door asking that we return the empty pitchers that had migrated up into our kitchen.
And as if pitchers of beer were not enough, early on we decided to host a Wapatuli party. The McDonalds just around the corner provided a large plastic punch-bowl for parties, at no cost! Although the typical customer was an 8-year-old having a birthday party, we asked everyone who came over to add any type of liquor to our McD Wapatuli globe.
We hoped to start the semester off making new friends and apparently were successful–Bill still remembers waking up the next morning to find complete strangers asleep in our living room. The party house reputation was firmly established and there was no going back.
Police at the Door
One night, Bill and I had gone to bed in our 3rd floor attic. Sometime during the night, we awoke to the sound of our doorbell ringing constantly. “Dingdong, dingdong, dingdong…” As Bill looked out the window, a spotlight shined on him and we heard, “Alright! We see you in there. It’s over. Come on out!”
Then we heard Bob and Jim from below whispering, “The cops are out there and they’re after us!” We crept downstairs and huddled together. We learned that Bob had been bothered by the noise from the McDonalds’ delivery truck, so he tossed a smoke bomb at the truck. The truck driver figured out where it came from and called the cops. Apparently the offense was not serious enough for them to get a warrant, so they eventually left. But we were now on notice.
Failed Fire Department Inspection
As the stories about our party house spread, Bob’s mom heard that Bill and I were sleeping on the floor of the attic. Somehow the fire department also heard about it and knocked on the door to inspect the rooms. When they saw our arrangement, we were ordered to move our mattresses out of the attic and into one of the two bedrooms on the second floor. Of course, once the fire chief left, we locked the door and moved the mattresses back to the attic.
Saved by the Memorial Union Meal Plan
As the apartment became more chaotic several of us decided to join the Memorial Union meal plan. For less than $5 per meal, we would go to the cafeteria for an all-you-can-eat dinner, including coffee and dessert. Here’s a picture of me at the Union, after eating a piece of fudge-bottom pie.
After dinner, I’d head over to the Helen C. White College Library to study for hours until the caffeine wore off. Late at night, I’d head back to our apartment and often stop into the bar for a quick game of Foosball before going upstairs to sleep.
As winter arrived the attic turned into a walk-in freezer. The piles of blankets and space heaters helped, but Bill said in an email, “I do remember waking up in the morning to a couple of inches of snow on my comforter, it was always a little chilly to get dressed in the morning.”
Summer Sublet
We all moved out in May and sublet the apartment during the summer of 1974. I spent that summer in West Yellowstone, working for the UW Department Bacteriology. When I returned in August, I spent hours getting the apartment back in shape–probably fearing that we’d lose our security deposit.
And I must have done something right to warrant this letter from our landlord, Charlie Magestro:
So how did my Sophomore year turn out? I somehow managed to do well in school that year, and my social life was pretty good too. It got even better toward the end of that year, when I started spending more time with my new girlfriend, Katie L’Heureux. But that’s another story.
There’s much more that I could write about. But I’m hoping that this story will prompt anyone who came to one of our parties or spent the night on one of our couches to leave a comment below.
Post-Script
I just returned to the apartment last week. The bar is now called “The Library Cafe & Bar” (click here).
I was there with a friend from Madison West High School, Bob “Bear” Phillips, who for the past 20 years has organized a monthly philanthropic night out at area restaurants, called “Burger Night Out” (click here).
The food and service were fantastic. And the owner (Stephanie, pictured below) said that Charlie Magestro passed away a few months ago (click here), but his family still owns the building and the apartment upstairs is still rented. I wonder if they are still sleeping in the attic?
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