The University Senate debates a resolution to ban smoking within 50 feet of all buildings on Columbia’s Morningside campus. (Spec)

A new housing option is introduced. (NYT)

Why, Camel, why? (NY Post)

It’s about that time… (Gawker)

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Andrew Cuomo v.  the President of 9/11 (NY Post).

The University Senate gets meta (Spec).  

There’s something in the water at Harvard (Gawker). 

The Office of Multicultural Affairs: Where Everyone Knows Your Name  (Spec).

Rachel Ray saves the world with whole-wheat flatbread and free-range chicken (CityRoom).

Hipsters worry that Williamsburg = Belfast circa 1970 (NY Daily News).

Bwog on a Budget, your wallet-friendly guide to living in the city returns this week, with a fall shopping guide for discount points of destination in and around the city.

Discount Department Stores

Don’t let the promises of Dolce and Gabana and Manolos fool you.  Invariably, you will search through piles of strewn polyester before you find any of the aforementioned treasures. Caveat emptor: low ceilings, dim lighting, and checkered linoleum floors induce migraines.

• Century 21 On a good day you might find some Betsey Johnson or Diane Von Furstenberg styles from last season for cheap.  Any other day you’ll just find very long lines and very small communal dressing rooms.  22 Cortland St. at Broadway Read more…

1020 not cutting it on Friday nights anymore? Bwog nightlife correspondent James DeWille is your tour guide to a better weekend. Here, he provides a user-friendly guide to Every 2nd Friday in Williamsburg.

Friday night is starting early this weekend, so prepare to don your dumpiest and head on over to the Bedford L stop for Williamsburg’s Every 2^nd Friday.  Every gallery in the ‘hood will be open until at least 9pm (most later) for a smattering of paintings, Pabst, and plaid.  Expect a lot of debauchery and stumbling from gallery to gallery, as most are within walking distance of each other and beer and wine will run freely till they run…empty (which reminds me, don’t be cool and show up late.  At least for tonight you’ll be in the wrong neighborhood for that kind of attitude; drink up and early).  Keep the night open and organic: follow invitations (except to Bushwick) and interesting people/sounds to hunt out after parties, impromptu band performances, and chilly but pretty rooftops.

For those who still need a guide map, here’s a round up a few shows definitely worth hitting up:  Read more…

Because Bwog knows you’re not really going to Tom’s with your OL group. (You know you don’t have to, right?) Here, several upperclassmen recall what they did on their first night of college.

My best friend from high school arrived at NYU the day before and he had already made friends with Haley Joel Osment. I called my friend and met up with him, Haley, and Haley’s entourage at a club in meatpacking where the 7 of us were given three bottles of vodka and an assortment of juices- all free. This was just after his DUI. –BC ’10

I didn’t have a computer that first night, so I was writing a letter by hand to a friend to tell her how college was going so far, when I looked out the window of my room in Wallach to see a bunch of freshmen from John Jay 5 staring back at me, motioning for me to come outside with them for a party on the lawn. I grabbed my suitemate and walked to the steps with our new friends. We were still wearing our pajamas. I thought “This is college — wearing your pajamas outside.” — CC’09 Read more…

Part of an ongoing series in which Bwog takes you to the less traveled corners of our metropolis (less traveled by CU students, anyway).

Remember Francie Nolan, the young protagonist of Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? She was thrifty and imaginative, a voracious reader, nimble with her hands. She worked her little Irish heart out to triumph over the filthy, crowded squalor of her neighborhood, Williamsburg.

If only Betty Smith had the chance to rewrite her novel for the 21st century. Francie would persevere over a boring suburban existence, eventually arriving at a warehouse loft on North 10th. She’d cut her bangs sideways and strut down Bedford in a pair of American Apparel leggings. She’d join an artist collective and smoke clove cigarettes, rolling her eyes at the trust-fund babies who wear thrift to look chic.

Williamsburg is no longer up-and coming. It’s come. Which means there isn’t much time to explore this eclectic neighborhood of performance art warehouses, restaurants, bars, cafes, and clubs on the L line, before the invasive Starbucks and Duane Reades strangle the native fauna.

Williamsburg proper can be found at the first stop into Brooklyn on the L (four stops from Union Square). Each additional stop on the L from Manhattan butts further into “old-school” Brooklyn – the Hasidic, Italian, and Hispanic neighborhoods more reminiscent of Francie Nolan’s old hood. But push a little further, and almost-hot Bushwick (called Wushwick by real-estate junkies eager to capture the cache of its uber-trendy neighbor) will put you back in hipster territory.

Places to check out, and a map to get you there, after the jump.

Read more…