While most Columbians vegetate in flyover states or work long hours in the beige halls of finance, Columbia prepares herself for the Fall 2012 and the arrival of the class of 2016. (We see you!)

Like the MTA’s, Columbia’s renovations are a patchwork of quick-fixes intended to squeeze a little more life out of really old infrastructure. Here are some pictures of campus under construction.

Looks like Milano is getting a facelift. The Milano men tell us they’re reconfiguring the doors, following their recent counter makeover. Give us two doors again, please!

Update: Looks like they’re getting two doors! Someone we spoke to at Milano said the construction should be done by today. Expect two doors on the right side of the checkout counter. And, if you care, the Milano cashiers prefer the new style because they like being behind one fancy counter all together. Cute.

A beautiful butterfly is emerging from its cocoon before our eyes! The not-so-cleverly-conceived and evidently donor-deficient Northwest Corner Building’s entryway can now be seen behind a white picket fence stretching across the plaza—look, it’s suburbia! In the city!

Photos by CCS

Barnard’s brand new student center, the Vagelos Center aka the Diana aka the Nexus aka the Vag, is open and ready for business as of yesterday. Hey, ‘Vag’ sounds like ‘vagina’. Weird!

The Diana is shiny, new and streamlined. It is much, much nicer than Lerner. The Vag’s first patrons seemed excited about their new space, and the eating, lounging and study spaces were crowded today around lunchtime. There was a long line at Liz’s Cafe and students seemed to be enjoying their healthy options; Bwog noted edamame in spades. The study spaces are abundant and well laid-out, with plenty of nooks for individual or group study, and the art and architecture studios on the upper floors are spotless. There were still a few signs of construction: blue tape, a dusty smell, the ongoing work outside the entrance.

Despite lingering work, the students we spoke to were impressed and pleased with the Diana overall. Still, a group students stood a few feet back from the Vag, still puzzling over the color scheme. A consensus was eventually: it could be peach, orange, red, salmon, pink, auburn or burnt auburn. The color scheme reminded Bwog of the new Renzo Piano-desigend  NYT building in Midtown– and right across from Sulzberger, too! More pictures of the Vag inside and out after the jump.

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Photo by ESN

Bwog’s Airborne Contaminants Team has finally confirmed, after days of close analysis, that the sign posted on the Wien bulletin board earlier this week does indeed contain the word “asbestos.” We’re all gonna die!

Well, maybe only those of us who like to hang out anywhere that smells of the good ol’ John Jay garbage chute. Though the sign says that floors 3-9 will be affected, close inspection of another sign (with much smaller print) reveals that construction on floors 3-8 will be limited to trash rooms, where some asbestos-laden pipe insulation will be replaced.

On floor 9, residents might be a little freaked by the plastic covering the carpet from the staircase to the south end of the hallway. The construction crew, which is set to start work tomorrow, will be removing “350 feet of vinyl asbestos tile” from rooms 938 and 940.

You may be coming home to a freshly “inspected” room,  but just think – it could be worse. Instead of stealing your alcohol, Columbia could have stolen your dearly loved asbestos tile floor. Never leave your valuables behind, kids. 

Earlier this morning, Barnard students received a message from outgoing President Judith Shapiro informing them that their would-be Vag will not be completed by its scheduled Fall 2009 date — something about subcontracting gone awry — but will instead open in January 2010. 

But there are silver linings abounds: Starting this fall Lewis Parlor will function as a cafe/student lounge, and Shaprio promises that student-oriented events will receive a higher priority when assigning space. The fully functioning Vag, Shapiro assures us, “will definitely be worth this uncomfortable wait.” Oh, we have no doubt.

Full email after the jump.

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The naming of buildings at Columbia has always been a project undertaken with the greatest care. Indeed, the majority of buildings on campus carry the names of prominent alumni who have contributed much to the university and to society at large. One is hard-pressed to find a building on campus without a family name of some significance attached to it. Yet, Barnard has deliberately deviated from this fail-safe approach to the naming of edifices at Columbia, in its choice to name the new student center currently under construction at the heart of its campus, the Nexus. While Nexus may not even be the final name of the building, Barnard has suggested that it would consider selling the naming rights to the highest bidder over the Internet, many have claimed that the choice of the word “nexus” for a campus center is quite suspect. Some Bwog tipsters have  even recently suggested that the ignominious name of the new Barnard campus hub actually derives from the Latin root meaning “bondage in slavery or debt.” Bwog set out to clarify if Barnard’s new campus center will indeed be a campus hub of human bondage by emailing Barnard’s Media Relations Director.  Her response after the jump: (more…)

Whether for study or sleep, some of us wish the night would last just a little bit longer. With this in mind, Bwog presents a retrospective look at the most night-y night of recent memory. During the total lunar eclipse of February 20, Bwog’s polyhistoric daily editor Zach van Schouwen ascended the heights of Pupin and snapped a couple of photos of the largest holes on campus. At right is the new Earth Sciences building. After the jump is the Barnard Nexus.

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It appears that Morningside Heights coffeeshops took winter break as an opportunity to shake things up. 

In the case of Saurin Park Café, a coffee and sandwich shop with free wireless located on the corner of 110th and Frederick Douglass Blvd, the cafe’s ownership has changed.  It’s now called Cafe Amrita and is owned by “some Chinese man” according to the cashier.  The new owner is considering small alterations to the menu and prices (read: it will get more expensive) but otherwise the cafe is virtually untouched.  The same grad students and Morningside moms are there, and the easy-listening music is still just a little too loud.  Hungarian Pastry Shop update after the jump.

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The grounds will be looking a little spiffier upon your return, as an anonymous photobwogger documents below. 

College Walk, swathed in black plastic for most of the summer, updates its look with new asphalt paving, new granite curbs, a storm drainage system and new lighting.

More photos after the jump! (more…)

Bwog thought the seventh floor of Hamilton was kinda just fine the way it was. The Hamilton elevator not so much. But hey, what the hell d
o we know?

Elsewhere in the ever-exciting world of campus facilities: the Mac is still standing, but probably not for that much longer–Barnard residents have told us they’ve been informed by e-mail that everybody’s favorite concrete slab has been slated for destruction sometime during the next couple of weeks.

Sad news, but we’re oddly comforted (or maybe just thoroughly confused) by this ancient piece of Digitalia:

“One’s experience of traveling through MacIntosh Hall can be understood as a purely spatial experience dictated by a drastic contrast between forward motion on this journey and retrospection on reverse motion along the journey.”

Will one’s experience of watching Mac get torn down be quite the spatial, drastically contrasting, forwardly moving and plaintively retrospective experience as grabbing a cup of Java City between classes? Stay tuned.

“Sweet shit!” Bwog thought as it considered the network of temporary fencing cris-crossing College Walk. “They’re filming a sequel to ‘The Siege’ right here at Columbia!” But a quick glance behind the fences–as well as the ominous absence of Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington–revealed that the university is undertaking a long-overdue renovation of its main thoroughfare. Although things seem to be at a preliminary stage, Bwog sincerely hopes that oddly-placed, high-heel devouring hexagonal bricks are a thing of the past on this campus.

Bwog doubts that the vaguely carnivorous lamp outside Butler actually crashed onto an unsuspecting sitter yesterday. But it does make you worry just a little. 

Resident photobwogger Sumaiya Ahmed snapped some photos of the mega construction efforts tearing up campus and disrupting summer pick-up soccer games.

Thousands (or 1332 CC and SEAS) eager first-years arrive with parents and tuition dollars in just a week! Will Columbia Facilities make it in time?

More photos after the jump…

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Just in case you haven’t been around to ogle at the cocoon that currently cradles our Beloved Butler library, here are a few snapshots.

According to the library’s, always helpful website the building should emerge from its tough outer casing by Fall 2007.