627 West 115th Street
| 627 W. 115th St | |
| {{{Image}}} | |
| Built | {{{Built}}} |
| Renovated | {{{Renovated}}} |
| Population | 33 |
| University Residence Halls | |
| 548 West 113th Street • 600 West 113th Street • Broadway • Carlton Arms • Carman • East Campus • 47 Claremont • Furnald • Harmony • Hartley • Hogan • John Jay • McBain • River • Ruggles • Schapiro • Wallach • Watt • Wien • Woodbridge | |
627 W. 115th St is a brownstone residence hall located on 115th Street between Broadway and Riverside Drive. It's commonly referred to as "ZBT," the "ZBT House," or the "former ZBT House" after the fraternity that used to own and occupy the house. Due to a rumored legal dispute with ZBT national, the house can no longer legally be called the above names and was renamed Owl House.
Unlike other residence halls, ZBT cannot be picked into during the housing lottery, since it houses undergraduate transfer students from Columbia College and SEAS, like Carleton Arms. This could be part of Columbia's plot to increase revenue by taking in more transfer students, as outlined in An Agenda for the Future. Or it could just be that Columbia's offering more of them guaranteed housing. (edit: actually, I think some of the rooms are available to pick in the housing lottery.) Unlike any other Columbia dorm (excluding Symposium), residents do not have a security desk, meaning they can swipe in as many Barnard and GS students as they want.
The only comparable non-SIC dorm is Symposium. ZBT's advantage over Symposium is that the facilities are better, and there is a huge basement lounge. But on the other hand, the rooms are mostly doubles and triples to make up for the huge square footage.[1]
In October of 2019, Owl House's basement lounge was used as the site of Columbia's first ever "Train Night," an event in which students gather to watch movies with trains in them. The first film viewed was Yeon Sang-ho's "Train to Busan," and everyone present agreed that it was very good.
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