John Jay Hall
From WikiCU, the Columbia University wiki encyclopedia
From WikiCU
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.
[edit] 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. [edit] Incidents in the building
[edit] Famous current and former residents
[edit] Facilities[edit] Floors
[edit] ElevatorsResidents 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. [edit] Advantages and disadvantages[edit] Advantages
[edit] Disadvantages
[edit] Photos
[edit] Floor plans
[edit] Tunnel/roof connections[edit] Hartley HallGet 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. [edit] Butler tunnel systemThis 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. [edit] RoofThe 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. [edit] Map[edit] Building address519 W. 114th St. [edit] External links |
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