[KSigkid]

This is weird; I live right near where all this happened. Honestly, I don't think people understand how different some parts of the fraternity sytem are in Boston.

Northeastern, much like my alma mater (Boston U.), does not have on-campus Greek housing; if you're a fraternity and want a house, you have to get one off campus. As a result, fraternity houses in the Boston area are just houses, rented by a group of fraternity members, in much the same fashion as houses and apartments are rented by someone else. The only difference is that only fraternity members live there. In most cases, it's not the whole chapter; when I (and KSigRC) was in school, the house had 8 brothers living in it. We had events and ritual there, and it was only fraternity members; however, we were renting from a landlord.

In this case, the Ronald McDonald house is kind of close to the hospital district, which does indeed have the Children's Hospital. It's in a nice area; I was actually surprised when I saw letters on the house the first time I walked by it.

Also, Northeastern's football field is close to the house, so it's not like it's completely off the beaten track. It's a little set away from the campus, but not too much so.

For background, Brookline in general is an extremely nice, extremely affluent suburb of Boston. Chances are, $1 million wouldn't get you much of a house in the area, and homeowners are generally quite wealthy. Frank McCourt, Bob Kraft and many prominent businessmen/doctors/lawyers/etc. live in the area. For those of us without millions of dollars, the apartments are rather nice as well, mostly college graduates and young families; there really isn't a bad section of town.

ETA: It was extremely poor judgement having that huge of a party in Brookline. In a community such as that, a party like that would be like asking to be arrested.