Broadway Residence Hall

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

Broadway Residence Hall is Columbia's most recent purpose-built college dormitory. While Columbia Housing has added new housing stock and renovated older stock since its opening, Broadway was the last undergraduate residence built from scratch. It was designed by architect and Columbia College alumnus Robert A. M. Stern, who has more recently been designing some of New York's most expensive residential buildings, and opened in 2000. The largely corridor-style dormitory has not yet had a name-donor, hence its oddly generic name. It is located on the north east corner of 113th St and Broadway, but it shares an entrance and lobby with Hogan on 114th St. Its street address is 2900 Broadway.

Overall the building is very well appointed and comfortable. If only the rooms were a little bigger...

Broadway singles usually go to rising seniors, and rising juniors with lottery numbers better than 1000. Doubles are usually occupied by sophomores.

In Summer 2008, Housing Services renovated the 10th through 13th floors of the building, putting hardwood floors in the rooms, new carpeting in the hallways and lounge, and providing new furniture (including flat-screen TVs) for the lounge. In Summer 2009, the same was done for the 6th through 9th floors, with the rest of the building anticipated to follow in Summer 2010.

History

The $50 million 140,000 square feet building was planned with the intent of it becoming a "Senior" central, and replacing the traditionally senior-filled Furnald, which was to be converted into Freshmen/Sophomore-only housing following Broadway's completion. According to Mark Burstein, who was the vice president for student services, "the new residence hall is modeled after Furnald. It's designed to be senior space. It will probably be one of the most attractive spaces on campus."

However, the inadequate size of the majority of singles (under 110 sq ft compared to Furnald's 125+ sq ft rooms) drew a less then enthusiastic response from disgruntled upperclassmen. Despite their dissatisfaction with the room sizes, they were left with no choice but to accept the rooms since they were now excluded from the more desirable Furnald Hall.

Facilities

The building has a total of 300 singles and 36 doubles. Each room has carpets, a Rolm Phone, Ethernet jacks, a built-in closet, modular shelves, and centrally-controlled air-conditioning and heating. The Resident Advisor rooms are 319, 419, 519, 619, 819, 1019, and 1219.

As of summer 2010, Broadway will be considered a "completed residence hall" by Housing Services, since each floor will have been renovated to include new lounges, kitchen appliances, new flooring for every room, new carpet in each hallway, and wireless Internet access. Broadway will be the first of all Columbia residence halls to reach the "completed" status.

Floors

• Elevators: 3 fast ones.
• Basement: laundry room with 9 washers and 10 dryers.
• Floor 1: lobby, lounge space, and part of the Junior Senior Advising Center.
• Floor 2: four music practice rooms, a conference room, and a seminar classroom.
• Floors 3 to 13: each floor two men's bathrooms, two women's bathrooms, a lounge with television, and a kitchen with 2 ovens and a sink.
• Floor 3: computer lab with 8 computers and 1 printer.
• Floor 4: small study lounge.
• Floor 14: two lounges with great views, and a kitchen.

Rooms

• 13 big doubles
• 23 small doubles
• 136 exterior singles
• 164 interior singles

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

• Near almost everything: Lerner, Butler, classes, subway, restaurants and stores on Broadway.
• Many higher-up rooms have great views.
• Generally clean. Corridors, lounges and kitchens are cleaned every weekday.
• 19 line is a 127 sq ft single.
• 19 and 11 lines have great locations and south views.
• 22 line is a nice double.
• Gorgeous sky-lounge on the top floor.

Disadvantages

• Small rooms compared to other options for seniors, like River or Watt
• Single rooms, multiple bathrooms, and fewer rooms per floor than freshman dorms make it dead quiet and not ideal for social life
• Sinks in the kitchen are too small to for washing most pots and pans, making them absolutely useless.

Images

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  The lobby, shared with Hogan

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  One of the more spacious singles

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  A floor lounge

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  One of the two sky lounges

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  A floor kitchen

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  Sky lounge

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  Sky lounge

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  Lobby lounge

Floor plans

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  Floor 3

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  Floor 4

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  Floor 5

• 

  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

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  Floor 11

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  Floor 12

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  Floor 13

Map

<googlemap lat="40.806068" lon="-73.964987" type="map" zoom="16" width="500" height="300" controls="small"> 40.806068, -73.964987, Broadway residence hall </googlemap>

Building address

Official address

For Broadway side entrance that students don't have swipe access to.

2900 Broadway
New York, NY 10025

Entrance address

The main student entrance for Broadway and Hogan (and for food deliveries).

556 W. 114th St.
New York, NY 10025

External links

• Columbia Housing - Broadway
• New Upperclass Residence Hall Opens on Broadway, Columbia Record, Vol. 26 No. 1, 4 Sept. 2000.