Welcome back to Ask Bwog, a feature in which we answer the many burning questions of this campus.


ghostbusters
If you have ever had the pleasure of taking the Official Columbia Campus Tour, you probably heard this story from your tour guide: when Ghostbusters was filmed at Columbia in 1984, the university set up a fund into which all the proceeds from the movie would go. This happened to be significantly more than they had expected, and so Columbia decided to use this fund to maintain campus lawns.

Another popular variation of this tale is that Columbia agreed to allow Ghostbusters to film scenes on campus on the condition that they would pay for Columbia’s lawn maintenance. Sound familiar?

LIES!

According to several members of Columbia Facilities, this myth is completely untrue. Ghostbusters did film scenes for their movie here: Drs. Venkman, Stantz and Spengler conceive of their ghostbusting plan on the steps of Low, and the School of Psychology and Parapsychology is in Schermerhorn Havemeyer. But while the Ghostbusters would have had to pay for any damage to the lawns while filming, they have never contributed to the ongoing maintenance of Columbia lawns.

We’re all for the truth here at Bwog, but the story is interesting enough to bring out a little Columbia pride.  Tour guides, fib away.

– Mahrah Taufique

Photo via Wikipedia