Bwog’s people report that the other car that got rear-ended stopped near the next intersection going downtown.

What’s with all the accidents on Broadway?

Photos by Hans Hyttinen and Yenny Su

A tipster sends Bwog this photo of a FedEx truck vs. fire hydrant outside Appletree.

And the aftermath, at around 1 PM:

At around 6:30, three cars, including a taxi, were involved in an accident on the east side of Broadway and 115th St. The scene is pretty much cleared now, except for a few cops taking down license plate numbers and talking with the drivers. Another cop walked into the street with a broom and dustpan to clean up shards of broken glass.

Photo by Conor Skelding

Daily Editor Anna Kelner reports that, about half an hour ago, a student was taken away by paramedics after an apparent frisbee accident.

No word yet on the student’s condition.

Columbia PhD graduate/ Google search engineer Sasha Blair-Goldensohn is making headlines all over the Big Apple as he recovers from being hit by a falling branch while in Central Park. Yesterday, according to the Daily News, “Blair-Goldensohn, 33, a Google engineer and father of two young children, was walking to work through the park Wednesday morning when a 100-pound limb broke off of a rotting tree and clubbed him on the head.” The tree limb had even punctured his lung, and Blair-Goldensohn was rushed to New York-Presbyterian in a coma.

Fortunately, after spending several hours, relatives (including J-School adjunct Gwenda Blair) say he is making a recovery, and responding to basic commands. We hope the story does have a happy ending.

Eyewitnesses have informed Bwog that there’s currently a Waterfall Situation on McBain 5. Apparently, a pipe has burst in the building and the water is streaming through the ceiling. But at least there is Community Building! Look at these smiling students in their Columbia apparel! Truly a moment for the University brochure.

Bwog is receiving reports from Blue and White alumnus James Wiliams that a car crashed into the front of Indus Valley, located on the southeast corner of 100th and Broadway. Police have already begun dismantling the car.

Standby for more pictures and details as they come in.   

UPDATE 3:45 PM: Bwog just returned from the scene of the crash with more pictures but very little info.  The NYPD on site were very unhelpful and didn’t respond to Bwog’s questions but with a brusque “Stay on the sidewalk, dammit.”  More pictures after the jump.

UPDATE 5:56 PM: The local Fox affiliate just reported on the story, saying that 9 people were hurt.

Photo by Anish Bramhandkar

Read more…

Bwog informant “please remove my name” forwarded us an email from one litigious young graduate who slipped and fell in front of the library a few years ago. Naturally, she’s suing Columbia and currently in the midst of trying to amass other slip victims to stregnthen her case. It is, after all, the American way.

However, she’s having trouble finding and getting in touch with fellow accident veterans, but she’s positive they exist — she’s even witnessed someone else slip in front of Butler as she was waiting for her own ambulance. “In our discovery claim against Columbia, they claimed there have been no previous reported complaints, falls, or injuries in that area, which I find very difficult to believe.”

Full letter (personal information redacted) after the jump. 

Read more…

Gather round Columbia, we heard a harrowing tale from SSN breach survivor John Davisson. It seems the free credit monitoring service that your administration has provided is giving identity thieves one more shot to steal your personal information if they were busy from February 2007 to May 2008.

“I called Identity Guard to activate my Columbia-bought-and-paid-for “CREDITPROTECTX®” service. After I gave the operator some basic info, she said she’d transfer me to their ‘Identity Verification Unit.’ I waited on hold for a couple of minutes, until I was suddenly patched through to two or three simultaneous conversations between other customers and operators. All but one dropped out quickly, allowing me to overhear the voice of another CREDITPROTECTX® prospect. I couldn’t make out what the operator was telling her, but within a few seconds, the caller rattled off her full name, phone number, home address, email address, and social security number. Then the line when dead.

Cupcakes: The all-purpose graphic! Perfect for film reviews.

And articles about cupcakes.

Barnard flooded with drawings of stick figures burning bras

Also: an actual flood

GSSC VP resigns, explains “I have an off-campus apartment now [...] I can only do so many things at once.”

A bit of belated news (as Bwog staff members also must make journeys to their respective motherlands), but it seems that there has been an accident! As for the “details to follow,” as far as we know they haven’t quite followed yet, although such incidents on the last day of finals do create potential imagined scenarios for themselves…

 From: “McShane, James”

Dear Team,

At about 5:30 A.M.,  SEAS student at EC was found lying in the grass in the back of the bldg.  He apparently jumped or fell out of his window. Broken left leg appears to be only injury.  Taken to St. Luke’s Hospital where  he is in stable condition. Details to follow.

James F. McShane

Associate Vice President for

Public Safety

Columbia University

 

Bwog received notice that there’s been a major car accident on the corner of 114th and Broadway involving a yellow taxi cab and a car full of apparently Columbia students. At the scene: highly emotional cab driver, several kids still stuck in the car, two or three people taping it all, and various medical, fire, and police vehicles.

We hope everything is alright; we’ll post again if we hear anything else.

UPDATE, 10:32 PM: CTV’s got the story. 

Twenty years ago yesterday, the US Senate rejected Robert Bork‘s nomination to the Supreme Court. Turns out he wouldn’t have gotten there at all were it not for the old Columbia School of Journalism, which wouldn’t recognize his degree from the University of Chicago when he tried to apply. “That irritated me a little bit, so in a fit of pique, I went to law school,”  he says at about 4:30.

And then became one of the most divisive jurists in American history.

  Thanks to David Yin for his legal geekery.

Anna Corke reports:

There is a gas leak on the 9th floor of Schermerhorn.

Art History Department Manager on the phone with Maintenance: Has anyone done anything about the gas leak on the 9th floor? There’s a class happening up there and no one has told them to leave. Some of the students are getting nauseous and dizzy…yeah…uh-huh….okay…I’ll tell them to leave.

Ah, bureaucracy.