Location: 544 W. 110 St, between Amsterdam and Broadway

• Nearby dorms: Near the College Residence (Barnard, with some Columbia students)
• Stores and restaurants: A few doors down from D’Agostino’s and across the street from Westside. One block from Chase, Verizon, Rite Aid and Duane Reade. Harmony is the closest dorm to Absolute Bagels, the Hungarian Pastry Shop, 1020, and Crack Del.

Cost:

• $7,492, same as River, Wallach, Nussbaum and Claremont

Amenities:

• Bathrooms: 2 bathrooms on each floor, with varying arrangements. Typically each floor has three showers and three toilets for 11 people. There is very intense shower pressure and the bathrooms are poorly ventilated so they tend to steam up a lot.
• AC/Heating: No AC, but has heating. It can get a little stuffy on the lower floors.
• Kitchen/Lounge: Large, spacious kitchens with lots of counter space. Each kitchen has a table and chairs making it a pleasant place to eat and hang out. They also all have large flat screen TVs with cable.
• Laundry: Four washing machines and four dryers in the basement, which take Flex.
• Computers/Printers: One computer and one printer.
• Gym: There is a gym on the second floor with a TV and AC. It has three treadmills and two ellipticals
• Intra-transportation: One elevator, perfectly functional.
• Hardwood/Carpet: Hardwood flooring in the rooms, tile in the bathroom.
• Bike storage: A bike storage room in the basement, and a bike rack right outside the entrance to the dorm.

Room variety:

• Harmony may have the greatest room variety of all dorms. Rooms range from 80 to 160 sqft.
• There are 80 singles and 6 doubles, 4 of which are on the second floor, set aside for the special interest community, Writers House.

Numbers:

• Harmony is mostly juniors, and a few sophomores looking for a little bit of space and light.

Bwog recommendation:

People who like to be a little more independent will enjoy living in Harmony. The large kitchens and proximity to Westside are ideal for those who like to cook. Ample bike storage and the nearby 110 st subway stop make it very easy to leave Columbia. It’s only three blocks farther than McBain, Symposium and Nussbaum, which hardly makes it “far” from campus, but you do feel like you’re going home at the end of the day.

Resident opinions:

• “People keep to themselves”
• “The security guards patrol the dorm very frequently to check for fire hazards. They will unplug kitchen appliances. This can be a nuisance and feel quite invasive, because otherwise, Harmony is a very private dorm— they’re pretty friendly though.”
• “The gym is really great to have nearby, and is definitely a big advantage.”
• “Even being three blocks away from the other dorms gives you a sense of space. It’s a straight shot to Central Park, and it’s the closest walk home from the subway.”
• “My 89 sqft single was too small, and I moved out second semester.”
• “There were still renovations being made throughout the year, and there would often be work going on that we did not know about. It could start really early in the morning and be quite loud and disruptive.”
• “Lots of natural light.”
• “I love Harmony! I was really glad to feel like I actually lived in a place, and enjoyed coming home at the end of the day. I often studied in the kitchen when I didn’t feel like going to the library.”

Gallery:

Photos by Elyse DeWitt