Housing Reviews 2017: Cathedral Gardens

Cathedral Gardens

Having a hard time trying to figure out where to live next year? Bwog is looking out for you with housing reviews of Barnard and Columbia dorms! In this review, Bwog presents a CG suite!

Location: 217 Manhattan Ave

Nearby Dorms: None. CG is basically sandwiched between two beautiful parks: Morningside Park and Central Park.

Stores and Restaurants: A lot of liquor stores, many grocery stores, Starbucks, delis open late into the night: everything that your little heart could possibly desire.

Cost: Depends on if you’re in a single or double and also based on demonstration of need and financial aid.

Amenities:

Bathrooms: Two separate bathrooms. One with two vanities, two showers and a bathtub. The other bathroom has a sink, toilet, and a shower with a tub.
AC/Heating: AC and heating included.
Kitchen/Lounge: Kitchen includes a dishwasher! Lounge space includes a large open space with a really large window that lets a lot of sun in.
Laundry: 4 Washer machines and 8 dryers are on the 10th floor. Residents use the same laundry card that is used in the Barnard quad.
Fire Escapes: None.
Bike Storage: According to the residents, there are no bike racks and no official place to leave your bike at CG.
Hardwood/Carpet: Fairly new hardwood floors throughout the apartment.
Intra-transportation: Two elevators that put Hamilton to shame. The stairwells are also pretty clean and land near the elevators. If you’re heading to campus, there are also shuttle buses that can take you to Barnard.

Room variety:

Featured in this housing review is an apartment with four singles and a double.
6 6-person suites: 4 with all singles, 2 with 4 singles and 1 double
3 5-person suites: singles with 1 double
6 4-person suites: 4 with 2 singles and a double, 2 with all singles
1 2-person suite: 1 double

Numbers

Cathedral Gardens currently houses 92 students. Most of the people that live in GC are seniors, but you could find the occasional junior and sophomore.

Bwog Recommendation

Cathedral Gardens puts living in the quad to shame. Living in CG would mean not having to sweat in the warmer months, never having to wash a dish, and never worrying about a mouse or cockroach. Its newer amenities and location in between Morningside Park and Central Park make it hard to completely rule out CG. While CG may seduce you with its new hardwood floors, there are also some other things to consider. If you want to be connected to campus life, don’t want to have to walk 15 minutes home every day or wait for the shuttle, then CG might not be for you. If you’re aspiring to become a Manhattanite, this is probably the closest that you will get to adulting. If you’re looking for a clean, new, and large suite space that’s a good distance away from Columbia, then CG is a great pick.

Resident Opinions:

“If I could go back in time, I would have lived here since my sophomore year. Having a huge living room space and being able to separate campus life from home is really nice.”
“The walk might be far but it’s nice to have space. There are a lot of windows in CG that have a let a lot of light into the space. It’s also nice to live in such a new building: we have never seen any cockroaches or mice.”
“We are closer to the B and C line which allows us to explore parts of the city that the 1 doesn’t even touch. I personally like the B and C line better because you get access to the east side.”
“There are liquor stores everywhere and there are lots of bars along Frederick Douglass Blvd. You also have a better chance of getting into CG because less people want to be far from campus but trust me, CG is the place to be.”