From Mafia Hitmen to Facebook Marketplace Scammers: The Shady History of the 518 Park Basement
By Herb Waters | Photo by Tara Mullaney
When students tour Boston University residences, they learn about a wide range of what makes BU BU: the skydiving resort at the Warren Towers elevators, the legend of [redacted] last year at StuVi 2, the almost “spawned-in” population of West Campus, and the kindergarten students being forced to run MyBU from the CDS basement. However, there is one residence – a hub, even – that’s constantly kept under the radar of those green ass tour groups. Today, we’ll travel to South Campus: the part of BU some consider the dirtiest of the dirty, the cleanest of the clean, or maybe overused by bootleg fashion magazines. Come with me as we walk down the steps of the fabled 518 Park Drive basement (is it 520, or 522? I don’t even know anymore. It’s all the same once you’re inside).
As you make your way down the narrow, rickety stairs that probably lead somewhere rat-infested, you’ll first notice an array of small silver mailboxes. These sit right in front of a few kilos of cocaine that the students are fortunately unaware of. Rumor has it that a few grad students arrive outside the mailroom at 2:37am, commence an hour-long, loud ruckus of trying to get the goods down said narrow staircase, and swiftly leave by foot. Many accounts still stand of students helping carry “printer paper” down the steps during their late study nights, and the correlation to their grades improving after exclusively using the “printer paper” to submit their assignments is completely unfounded.
After stepping over the booby traps in front of the study room, you enter an old-fashioned warehouse-ish room riddled with strange noises and sophomores. They don’t know it, but they’re studying in the hideout of one of the oldest crime families in Boston that won’t be named here because they don’t actually exist and it was admittedly pretty cool to think about that while grinding my sociology final in said hideout. However, many murders were (allegedly) committed in the bathroom which (allegedly) was frequented by a “TA” who (allegedly) needed blood samples for (alleged) market research for the Domino’s next to 518. Anyway, let’s move on.
The next door opens into a game room with a pool table, a malfunctioning TV, and only one sophomore this time. The sofa on the right is the most notable piece of furniture in this room. Last year, from that very couch, Boston University Organized Crime ran a racket where we resold fake designer clothes on Depop. Their agents would sit there for fifteen hours at a time on our jailbroken iPad with two VPNs, upcharging film majors for a pipe cleaner necklace while procrastinating our chemistry homework. A few months in, they then took the hustle to Facebook Marketplace, where they took many very convincing pictures of HotWheels cars and sold them as the real thing. They made sure to not be present at the actual site when we sold our first fully metal and somewhat undersized Dodge Challenger for $40k, and blocked the buyer right after he complained that he couldn’t fit through the door.
We’re now exiting the glorious gangland of 518 Park. I don’t know why some ragtag documentary team hasn’t filmed a fake VICE segment here yet. I didn’t even tell y’all about the stove under the bathroom where I was caught making SPAM and eggs with some extra seasoning from the mailroom. There’s a secret under and behind everything here, and it’s up to the next man to find them… and yeah, I’m not telling you where my cocaine stash is. If you’re desperate and daring enough, you’ll figure it out.