John Jay Hall

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See also Wikipedia's article about "John Jay Hall".

John Jay is a first year residence hall. It also contains the John Jay Dining Hall, the offices of Health Services, and JJ's Place, a basement snack bar. The building is located at the corner of 114th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, with its entrance on the campus side. It is named for Founding Father and alumnus John Jay.

The staircase that runs from the lobby to the basement is very interesting, featuring nice brickwork and a fancy wooden sign that contrasts with the usual bland white wall, carpet, and fluorescent lighting everywhere else. This staircase is probably entered no more than once a week as everyone uses the elevator instead. Most John Jay residents don't know of its existence.

Not to be pronounced Juan Jé or John Jizzle.

History

A John Jay room in the 1920s

John Jay Lounge in the 1950s

John Jay Hall was one of the last McKim, Mead, and White creations, built in 1927. It was not the first John Jay Hall. Previously, Columbia had purchased a group of four apartment buildings in the surrounding area, one of which was named John Jay Hall; later it was revised to Charles King Hall. The present John Jay Hall was originally called "Students Hall" and sought to become a "grand university commons" that would combined student quarters with dining facilities and club rooms. The fourteenth floor was a men's infirmary. Before Lerner Hall, and Ferris Booth Hall before that, the space now taken up by Health Services was Columbia's student center. Even the Columbia Spectator had offices there. With almost three decades of Columbia campus planning experience, McKim, Mead, and White planned John Jay Hall down to the last detail. Johnson (now Wien) Hall had been completed just two years earlier to house female graduate students. In keeping with John Jay's mission of housing male students, the wood paneling, massive fireplace, opulent dining hall, were all carefully selected and designed to create a more "masculine" feel.

Students often wonder why John Jay Hall, exclusively freshman housing, would consist of all singles, when singles are the exception, rather than the rule, at any other university. The answer is that Columbia's priorities up until the last decade were heavily tilted in favor of its graduate and professional schools. John Jay was never meant to house just undergraduates, to say nothing of first-years. The author's father's PhD advisor attended Columbia's School of Engineering in 1947 and distinctively remembers living on John Jay 11. He also remembers a place in the basement of John Jay, then the Lion's Den, now JJ's Place, that served some wonderful fried chicken (and beer!) that one could get at any hour of the night. He also remembers uncooperative elevators (because the elevator operators went on strike). Some things never change.

But most do. The twentieth century witnessed an epic struggle between Columbia College and the graduate and professional faculties for control of John Jay Hall. As late as 1965, the College winning yet another floor from the graduate and professional schools (one of which was SEAS), was enough to make front-page news in the Spectator. By the 1980s and 1990s, as Columbia was beginning to refocus on its undergraduate education, the battle was finally over as the South Field dormitories were set aside for first-year housing.

Incidents in the building

• 1934: Anti-Semitic demonstration interrupts the Purim dance being held in the building
• 1967: Vietnam-era anti-recruitment protest led by Ted Gold and the SDS turns violent

Famous current and former residents

• Federico García Lorca (1929-1930), Spanish poet, while enrolled in GS: “my room in John Jay is wonderful. It is on the 12th floor of the dormitory, and I can see all the university buildings, the Hudson River and a distant vista of white and pink skyscrapers.”
• John Berryman, poet: once reported that he was knocked cold by a bottle that was tossed in through an open John Jay window.
• Julia Stiles (2000-2001), actress
• Max Minghella (2005-2006), actor
• Spencer Treat Clark (2006-2007), actor

Facilities

Floors

• Floor 4: administrative offices for Health Services.
• Floors 5-15: residential floors

Elevators

Residents of John Jay 5 (the lowest floor with residents) are legendary for their refusal to take the stairs, even though this only exacerbates the elevator problem.

In November 2007, residents of John Jay 6 ordered t-shirts with the words "I TAKE THE ELEVATOR" screen-printed on the front.

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

• You're in the same building as John Jay Dining Hall and JJ's Place, so you don't have to go outside during the winter or inclement weather to use up your meal plan or buy snacks.
• You're also in the same building as Health Services in case you fall sick.
• Hamilton Hall, where many undergraduate humanities classes are held, is a minute's walk away.
• Beautiful spacious lounge on first floor, with a piano where you can practice.
• Single rooms for freshmen, which is almost unheard of at most colleges.
• Connected to Wallach and Hartley, so you can use the Hartley computer lab and LLC laundry room (when the John Jay laundry room is full) without going outside.
• Nice and spacious floor lounges.
• Beautiful campus views from rooms on the higher floors that face campus.
• Some of the rooms have nice views of St. John the Divine or midtown, etc.

Disadvantages

• The 2 elevators are abysmally slow, if they're running. People routinely take the stairs even from the 8th or 9th floor just out of frustration.
• The entire building is older, and therefore feels somewhat shabby, especially the bathrooms.
• No air conditioning.
• No kitchens besides pathetic little "floor kitchens".
• Floors are not as immediately sociable as in Carman Hall.
• Walls are thin, so soundproofing isn't as good as in Carman Hall.

Photos

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  A single

• 

  Single 2, view 1

• 

  Single 2, view 2

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  View from a north-facing single

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  Floor bathroom

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  Floor lounge

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  Main lounge on ground floor

Floor plans

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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

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  Floor 14

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  Floor 15

Tunnel/roof connections

Hartley Hall

Get down to the basement by using the stairs or elevators. Do not enter the basement by means of JJ's, the doors are alarmed. The tunnels leads north up a ramp. Hartley lies beyond, but Hamilton is locked off. There are no alarms or cameras other than the ones on the JJ's doors. This tunnel is legal, but it is dirty and foul-smelling.

Butler tunnel system

This tunnel is blocked semi-permanently. To even see it from the John Jay side is extremely risky, as it is located at the back of the JJ's storeroom, which has cameras at the entrance. The door itself is hot-glued and welded shut. Better visit the Butler side which is much easier to get to. If you want to get to the connection of the John Jay side, you also have to sneak into the storeroom, which is hard because the JJ's people are pretty much always there.

Roof

The roof is the slanted copper style, so you can't stand on it, except for a small section near the edge of the roof, if you have a friend on the 15th floor. However, you are six inches away from a 160 ft drop; it's not worth it. In any case, the access hatch is easily located on the roof of the fifteenth floor, but good luck opening it without anyone noticing. If you want a good view of the campus from a roof, try Mudd Hall, Pupin Hall, or Butler Library.

Map

<googlemap lat="40.805851" lon="-73.962522" type="map" zoom="16" width="500" height="300" controls="small"> 40.805851, -73.962522, John Jay residence hall </googlemap>

Building address

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

External links

• Columbia Housing - John Jay
• Petition to rename John Jay Hall