1132 Broad Street is all over the place — and all fun

A two-story teal house on the corner of Broad Street and Seventh Avenue, 1132 Broad St. is inhabited by Abdiel Lopez, Annette Mokua, Jessica Black, Rita Clark and Rodas Hailu, all ’18. Since the end of the previous academic year, they have each added their own charm to the quirky residence. Every room has a different shade of wallpaper, which should be enough to make anyone fall in love with the place.

“It has a personality, kind of like all of us,” Lopez said.

When deciding on the rooms that would eventually be their unique realms of the residence, Lopez and Black initially fought over what they deemed the “prime room” on the second floor. However, Lopez finally surrendered it when they realized that the room near the front door was in fact the biggest.

Despite their differences in bedroom preference, the sunroom happens to be a mutual favorite of the residents. Mokua stayed in Grinnell over the summer and chose the room next to the sunroom to make the most of the Iowan sunlight.

“I want to say [that my favorite place is], hands down, the sunroom,” Mokua said. “Sometimes when we host parties, we have some pretty lights set up there and we have people walk out there, and they are drinking, smoking, talking, playing cards, whatever they do. It’s a chill spot.”

The living room, as with most houses off campus, is the subject of many of the house’s stories, in which pre-games have taken place weekend after weekend. As for the iconic couch on the front porch, another favorite hangout space during pre-games, it has just always been there.

“I wish I had some cool stories,” Mokua said, in regard to the origin of the couch.

Interestingly, the source of the beanbag in the sunroom has never been questioned either. Some of the décor, such as a few posters, was also handed down from previous residents.

When it comes time to open the house up to others, Mokua and Lopez, the self-proclaimed “head bitches in charge,” usually take it upon themselves to organize the house parties. Lopez especially enjoys arranging themed parties, such as “Linda,” which seems to have been the most memorable of them all. When asked what “Linda” was, they said that people had to come to the party to find out who Linda was at the end of the night.

Mention must also be made of the unofficial resident of 1132 Broad St., the “neutral” ghost, “not negative, not positive!” Although the ghost’s usual hangout location is a topic of debate between the five living residents, it has been known for moving objects in the nifty kitchen and the expansive basement.

It is safe to say that not all the residents know their basement too well, especially given that Mokua had no idea about Lopez’s plan to convert the hidden cave room into a bar in the future. Mokua argued that Grinnellians would never walk down to the basement to get their drink, but Lopez wished to use this article as an advertisement for the bar. The room already has a built-in rack for all the bottles; just a bit of refurbishing and the house should be ready to bring their parties to a new level.

During such a party, a guest walking around the house might notice several slogans against white supremacy — the residents don’t accept any shenanigans.

While Lopez, Black and Hailu are Posse scholars, Mokua and Clark are international students from Kenya and Nicaragua respectively.

“We’re all over the place, literally and metaphorically. It’s a cute house, we’re cute housemates,” Lopez said.