Hartley Hall

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See also Wikipedia's article about "Hartley Hall".

Hartley is one of the two residence halls that make up the Living Learning Center. It was built in 1904 and is the oldest residence hall on campus. It is noted for having the narrowest double on campus, 2C5, where a tall man (or woman) can touch two walls at any point in the room.

Poet Langston Hughes and Beat Generation authors Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac all lived here, though Kerouac greatly preferred neighboring Wallach.

History

Hartley Hall, Columbia's first dormitory, celebrated its centennial in 2004, although it did not open to students until 1905. The building was the gift of Helen Hartley Jenkins and her nephew Marcellus Hartley Dodge, two names which would grace the Columbia lexicon repeatedly throughout the twentieth century. Spurred by the gift, the University coughed up an equal amount of money from it's own funds to construct a twin dormitory, Livingston Hall (now known as Wallach Hall).

Many students bemoan the shocking variance of room size wherein an occupant of a cramped 94-square foot single may find him or herself ten feet away from a 110-square foot single, but there is a method to this madness. In Nicholas Murray Butler's day, room size and location depended on the rate one was willing to pay, not a lottery process backed by a flat fee. President Butler intended for his dormitories to be "in the interest of true democracy," by liberally interspersing larger rooms with smaller ones (and by implication, richer students with poorer ones).

It should also be noted that Hartley, and its twin, Wallach, were dedicated exclusively to undergraduate housing, a rather odd move in the days when Columbia was still considering shutting down the College outright (SEAS, or rather the School of Mines, was still a graduate-and-professional faculty, and a fairly profitable one at that, and thus was spared the budgeter's wrath).

Until 1970, the building housed a lounge for students in the now-banished ROTC program. It was taken over in that year by black student activists and renamed the Malcolm X Lounge.

In 2000, the Living and Learning Center program began at Hartley and Wallach Halls in what supporters enthusiastically called a genuine attempt to build community and foster student body cohesion, and what detractors cynically label a failed attempt to imitate Yale's residential college model.

Notable residents

• Allen Ginsberg, Beat Generation poet
• Herbert Gold, novelist
• Langston Hughes, poet
• Jack Kerouac, Beat novelist (thought Hartley had a cockroach problem and a bad view)

Photos

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  Single 5A6, view 1

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  Single 5A6, view 2

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  Single 5A8, view 1

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  Double, view 1

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  Double, view 2

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  Double, view 3

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  Bathroom, view 1

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  Bathroom, view 2

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  Suite lounge, view 1

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  Suite lounge, view 2

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  Stairway to Heaven (Hartley suites are on 2 levels)

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  The second lounge in the suite

Floor plans

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  Floor 2

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  Floor 3

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  Floor 4

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  Floor 5

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  Floor 6

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  Floor 7

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  Floor 8

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  Floor 9

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  Floor 10

Tunnel connections

John Jay Hall and Hamilton Hall

Go down to the basement by using the stairs or the elevator. Walk south to get under Wallach Hall, then use the elevator or the stairs. Continue on to get into John Jay Hall which is also legal. However, the door north to Hamilton Hall is triple padlocked & welded atomic blast door. You aren't getting around this one anytime soon. These routes are legit, but they're dirty and stink.

Map

<googlemap lat="40.806466" lon="-73.961785" type="map" zoom="16" width="500" height="300" controls="small"> 40.806466, -73.961785, Hartley residence hall </googlemap>

Building address

1124 Amsterdam Ave.
New York, NY 10027

External links

• Columbia Housing - Hartley