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AROUND
THE QUADS
Broadway Dorm Opens on Schedule
Fewer
seniors than expected opt for first new residence hall since
1988
By Alex Sachare
The
Broadway Residence Hall, Columbia’s first new dorm since Schapiro
Hall was completed in 1988, welcomed its first occupants this
month, opening on schedule and within budget.
The
mix of residents, however, is not quite what administrators
expected. The vision was for the new dorm to be part of a
three-building senior complex along Broadway from 113th to
114th Streets, with Hogan and Watt. But more seniors than
expected have chosen to live elsewhere, opening much of Broadway
to juniors and sophomores.
The
14-story facility contains 371 beds, 80 percent in single
rooms and the rest in doubles. According to Ross Fraser, director
of residence halls, the singles are split evenly between seniors
and juniors while the doubles are occupied by juniors with
some sophomores — meaning fewer than half the students in
what was originally projected to be a senior dorm, and which
includes the Senior Class Center on the first floor, are seniors.
Many
seniors opted for the recently refurbished Furnald, according
to Fraser, while others chose to remain in groups and went
for suites in East Campus rather than singles in Broadway.
“Seniors
tend to be risk-aversive about their housing,” Fraser noted.
“I think once this [Broadway] is more of a known quantity,
the numbers will change. You’ll see more seniors opt for it
a year from now.”
The
student entrance to the Broadway Residence Hall is on 114th
Street across from the Carman Hall gates, behind Hogan. The
first floor is an expansive, nicely appointed lobby, not unlike
that to be found in an upscale hotel. There is an attractive
staircase leading from the lobby into Hogan, and the hope
is to create access to Watt as well. “Although you only have
maybe 60 percent of the senior class, it’s the largest concentration
of seniors in any three buildings and they’re all connected
nicely together,” observed Mark Burstein, vice president,
facilities management.
The
first two floors of the new building will house a branch of
the New York Public Library as well as a retail space, neither
of which is ready for occupancy. Both will have separate entrances
and be sealed off from the dormitory part of the building.
Also on the first two floors are the Senior Class Center,
a computer room, four music practice rooms and a seminar room.
Student housing is on the third through 13th floors, with
separate lounges and kitchen facilities plus four bathrooms
on each floor. There are two airy lounges on the top floor,
one envisioned for meetings or other programming and the other
for more informal use.
Designed
by world-renowned architect Robert A.M. Stern ’60,
the Broadway Residence Hall was budgeted at $53 million, according
to Burstein, and there is some money left for contingencies.
This despite the fact that Columbia had to assemble the site,
which formerly included a garage, a bank branch and a barber
shop, a process that delayed the start of construction by
two months. Also, building plans were modified after meetings
between community leaders, the architects and University officials
headed by Emily Lloyd, executive vice president for
administration. The height of the dorm was reduced from 21
to 14 stories and a tan-colored brick was chosen instead of
red, so the building will blend in better along that part
of Broadway. The entrance to the library was moved to the
corner of Broadway for greater access, and the façade of a
townhouse on 113th Street — once home to baseball legend Lou
Gehrig ’25 — was incorporated in the design of the building,
a process that “worked out very successfully, I think, for
all parties,” according to Burstein.
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