Hamilton 602 before the redesign

Remembering our fine tradition of reviewing things that don’t really matter pass over the undiscerning eye (such as pastries, cafes and chairs), we mark the beginning of a new semester with the beginning of a new set of criticisms — in this case, the lecture hall. After all, environment is everything. Our first assessment comes from that building you mostly think of as a 15 story coffee shop: NoCo. Yes, they have classrooms. 

For an English major who’s rarely had a class of more than 50 people, the stumbling entrance into NoCo 501 (and you didn’t even know that building had individual rooms until about half an hour ago) is one fraught with terror and agoraphobia. The combination of your bulky outerwear, the Joe’s cup leaking onto your hand, and the stares of what have to be a thousand people looming above you cause you to break into a sweat almost instantly. So this is what being a premed is like.
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Illustration by Jean Kim

In this newest excerpt from The Blue and White, Conor Skelding tells us what the Northwest Corner Building can teach Columbia about Manhattanville. Additional reporting by Sally Gao, Luca Marzorati, and Angelica Modabber.

“Did you know there’s a 15-story coffee shop by Pupin?” asked a bumbling but blunt Dean Valentini in last spring’s 118th annual Varsity Show.

Most undergraduates visit the northwest corner of campus to disburse disposable income at Joe the Art of Coffee. Some attend class in the building’s single lecture hall or study in the Science and Engineering Library. And although only a select few (relative to those who associate it with a high-ceilinged espresso bar) consciously consider the building an interdisciplinary science center, that is the building’s intended purpose.

As the University planned and built the Northwest Corner Building, the central administration deliberately considered and tested the physical and academic planning processes. Whatever could be learned from the new science building would be put to work further uptown. As one University Senate report put it, the Northwest Corner Building was a “training run” for the ongoing Manhattanville development, President Bollinger’s signature project, and part of his ongoing effort to remake Columbia as a “global university.”

Read more after the jump

Bwog's happy place

Dreamy heartthrob Davy Jones of The Monkees died yesterday of a heart attack, leaving all of us just Daydream Believing (LA Times)

Did you finally stop having nightmares about Patrick Bateman?  Sorry… (Huffington Post)

Justin Bieber turned 18 today.  Those dreams you started having after “taking your little sister” to see Never Say Never are now totally legal and not at all weird.  (People)

New York high school admission letters just went out, making and breaking some 13 year old dreams. (NY Times)

Our very own NoCo continues to bring in the accolades.  We can only dream that one day it will have a real name. (MarketWatch)

Dream Lake, Colorado via Wikimedia Commons

The quality of hope never dies, even in the face of being kicked out of the NoCo library far too soon. In an effort to make words into actions, a dreamer scrawled the promise of “ALL DAY ERRDAY!!”  hours outside of NoCo. If only; if only.

But honestly, the library and Joe’s hours suck. Solidarity, dreamer.

New hours starting this week

Well, that was quick. While this fence probably isn’t here to stay, it is still a bit disheartening to have our hopes of enjoying the sight of a bit of green in the last sunny days of the year mercilessly crushed by the presence of this drab eyesore.

Right photo by Chris Mulligan

Behold the marriage of modernism and nature! Or at least something green. In this urban jungle we’ll take what we can get.

The hardscrabble, weeds, and dead shrubs that littered the raised-plaza-thing outside NoCo have blossomed into perfectly manicured grass sod. Looks like a great place for the kids in the brochures to lay out and read books. No red flags here. Yet.

Goes well with: iced Joe and a sunny disposition.

Protip: Keep some tickets to the Gun Show on hand, and distribute in the case of conversation lulls.

Think you’re all set for job fairs just ’cause you’re sporting semi-formal and have a sheaf of resumes? Think again—a tipster overheard the following ominous exchange in NoCo:

“Talking to people at job fairs is, like, 50 times harder than talking to girls.”

“Wow, that’s really hard.”

Visual brotip via Wikimedia Commons 

The NoCo librarians have stuck again! After launching a pun-laden campgain against non-spillproof mugs last week, the intrepid book-minders (there are books in there somewhere, right…?) feel it necessary to now also point out that food is not allowed in the Science and Enginerring Library. Thus, they’ve printed out a picture of a most comely actress and emblazoned her likeness with Comic Sans in a speech bubble—and now they’ve got your full attention. Quick, hide that Robicelli cupcake you paid too much for at Joe!

The text below the black-and-white beau reads: "if it is edible, or you didn't bring enough to share, then it is prohibited in the SEL"

While they’re at it, they would also appreciate it if you stopped dumping your trash down the book return. Quantum electrodynamics is confusing enough without coffee spilled all over it.

Even our astute tipster mistook this metallic bin for a waste bin at first glance. Be alert!

There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend: those with the right kind of mug in the NoCo library, and those who tell you that you have the wrong mug…

Librarians going crazy. The text below the ugly mugs reads: "If...it looks like these. Then...ew"

…and that you can’t use your phone

More librarians going crazy in Avery. Someone actually decided it was necessary to print a yellow sticker.

Today from 1:15 to 2:39 pm, our own University Senate met in Schermerhorn 501 for the first plenary meeting of the year. As with any such plenary, there were big helpings of Milano cookies, Newman’s Own juices, and petty behavior. Bwog’s plenary junkie Conor Skelding stopped by both for the laughs, and also to observe serious consideration of a campus-wide smoking ban.

PrezBo asserted his power at 1:15 sharp, banging his gavel, cutting off the chatter, and shouting, “Okay, let’s go!”

With his standard out-of-order opening speech, PrezBo eased along through the agenda, “Okay, we need a motion to adopt the agenda…is there a second? No objections…okay.” He talked about ROTC, NoCo, FAS, the College, and what the agenda would be for the day.

“The University is, I think, making great, great progress, and we all take enormous pride from being associated with it.” [applause mainly starting with two people]

And with his typical style, PrezBo dismissed the importance of the meeting as he built it up, saying, “I have to leave at 1:45 because the President of Ecuador is coming, and he has done some things on which I need to challenge him.” [laughs, sorta forced]

By then the meeting was actually underway, and a student raised the idea of course evaluations being open to students. PrezBo personally supports that, but “it’s not something I can or should decide on my own.” People laughed at that.

An anti-ROTC professor asked about how the ROTC committee would work, and PrezBo said he didn’t know. She asked for “as much information as possible.” After a little talk about Title IX and fringe benefits, the real issue of the meeting got underway: a campus-wide smoking ban. (more…)

Bwog has just received a flurry of tips reporting unsettling activities around NoCo. Public Safety declined to comment, but the situation appears to be resolved. Helicopters were spotted above the north side of campus, and NoCo was evacuated, apparently due to a fire that broke out where construction was going on.

Joe was also temporarily closed because of a flood in their store room. Bwog’s Chief Joe Rat Alex Jones spoke to the manager who believed the room was drenched because of a fire alarm. Others mentioned hearing sirens up by 120th St. Jones reports that the baristas “almost immediately put back on their fedoras and started serving.” And the elevators are not working. Panic!

Update, 8:00 pm: Here are some photos of the damaged construction site.

Educators4Excellence, a non-profit teacher’s organization, are camped out at Joe in NoCo right now. They’re handing out free coffee and muffins if you’ll stop and chat about education!

If Barnard’s psychology Professor Robert Remez had a spirit animal, it would be the Sphinx. The one perched on his desk, he explains, reminds him to “maintain an eloquent silence, but it’s not working.” Lucky for Bwog, the eloquent-but hardly silent-professor shared his office for one of our more scholarly features. Katheryn Thayer stopped by his office hours…

Professor Remez’s office in Milbank has a view of the 1 train’s tunnel entrance and Joe’s tall cafe windows. From his fourth-floor summit at the corner of Broadway and 118th, he watches trains emerge at street level and vanish underground, often inviting toddlers from the psychology research center to join him. The activity is “endlessly amusing, to a two year old, and to me.”

His other favorite view, he recalls with nostalgia, gazing out at the towering NoCo, was of the tennis courts that once filled that corner of the campus. When the trains rushing out of their subterranean portal failed to relieve writer’s block, he would turn to the east window and watch bad tennis, waiting for one of the players to lob a ball onto Broadway. Apparently this happened with surprising frequency.

His penchant for unprofessional tennis aside, Remez welcomes the new building. He says he schedules meetings there and “though I haven’t yet cultivated voyeurism for the café [like Bwog has], I do have a good vantage point.” Professor Remez spends much of his time here in quiet meditation, slowly and thoroughly peeling a grapefruit from his bowl of fruit, making Fairway Santo Domingo Coffee in his French press (better than Joe!), or flipping through his book of Mao quotations. This is symbolically bookmarked with a fake $50 bill and placed in a mug featuring a picture of his renowned linguistics professor, Arthur Abramson.

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Bwog has been hanging around Joe quite a bit for the past few weeks. We’ve reviewed the vittles, invited you inside of our brain, and learned the true meaning of cupping. Below, Delicious Dessert Correspondent Diana Clarke reports on Joe’s newest addition, Robicelli’s cupcakes. Today’s flavors, Partida Tequila and Abuelita:

I almost missed National Tequila Day. Did anybody even know that was a thing? Robicelli’s, the greatest homeless cupcake bakery in the city of New York, realized it was definitely a thing when the Partida Tequila people told them. So naturally, Robicelli’s decided to make limited edition Partida Tequila cupcakes. Then everyone’s favorite new campus espresso bar Joe decided to start carrying Robicelli’s cupcakes. And that is how I came to eat a tequila cupcake yesterday in the Northwest Corner Science Building.

Frosted with pale green buttercream and topped with lime slice candied in agave, the cupcake smelled immediately of lime and butter. The frosting alone was rich and smooth but still light, and tasted of key lime pie. The cake, meanwhile, had a spongy moist crumb that didn’t fall apart, with a faint flavor of tequila. Chewy and sweet, the slice of lime offered a stronger tequila taste. Nobody got buzzed in the midafternoon, but one of my friends called the Parida Tequila “one of the best non-chocolate cupcakes I’ve had.” Read on for more tasty goodness

In case you haven’t noticed, Bwog is kinda a fan of NoCo, a.k.a. the Northwest Corner Building. Check out some photos of our beloved building!