“It’s the aesthetic,” agreed senior Elexa Reiss. “You drive in with your friends, you look out the window, there are lights, you’re in the middle of Boston. It was just going to be awesome!”
But their hopes for a Copley Plaza prom were dashed as the pandemic restrictions dragged on. In January, class representatives asked the hotel for a refund of their $10,500 deposit, so they could pay for an outdoor event.
“They told us that we were in default of the contract and that we owed them another $30,000 … because we were canceling the event,” says class advisor Karen Carig-O’Neill. “We said we’re not cancelling the event. We said if you can have a COVID guideline event for us, then we will have that. If you can have an outdoor event for us, we are more than willing to do that, but they couldn’t provide that.”