The image makes it look so quaint. DO NOT BE DECEIVED

Today Bwog’s decidedly daring correspondent Dara Homer venture’s deep into the depths of Schermerhorn to visit one of it’s…creepier settings: 506. BOO!

Schermerhorn Hall is usually known for frightening students by its labyrinthine layout and terrifying scarcity of bathrooms.  But a certain room on the 5th floor contains horrors that are slightly less infamous but all the more spooky.

Room 506 can be oh-so-intuitively reached on not the fifth, fourth, or even the third floor, but up one single flight of stairs (or judgment-filled elevator ride).  Once the “fifth” floor is reached, an intrepid student must travel down an eerily lit little hallway and down a tiny mysterious ramp to reach the door to classroom 506.  This is the moment when many choose to turn back, but the bravest souls will continue onward into the depths of this palace of creepy.

Inside Room 506, the lights across the room turn on one by one, creating a ballet of shadows that scrambles the chilling surroundings.  The silhouettes of glass cabinets filled with sinister trinkets can just barely be seen in the quasi-darkness.  They are arranged in narrow aisles, and their shiny mirrored panes produce a sort of fun-house effect.  Their glistening panes distort perspective while simultaneously creating an atmosphere of dizzying claustrophobia.  Once the room is fully lit, the view is still grim, as all of the windows are blocked by shelves and other pieces of furniture.  The clammy industrial lighting illuminates the little creepy objects behind the glass as they glint maliciously from the warping effect of the panes.

Rows and rows of little rocks of all colors and shapes resemble a sorcerer’s collection of amulets, and geometric forms made of tiny glass spheres look like little disembodied eyes suspended in space.  They appear to blink secret messages in a mysterious code as the shadows shift around them.  Perhaps most menacing of all are the little alien prisms pictured above.  They look like a cross between jagged ornaments from a Christmas gone wrong, something evil circus clowns would use to accessorize, and assorted extraterrestrial eggs.  Just below the ominous hum of the plumbing, you can hear them rattle inside their glass cage as you walk across the room.  They tremble as if filled with a threatening energy, and you can’t help but wonder if they’re just waiting to open up and wreak their alien witchcraft on all of Columbia’s campus.

Students fearless enough to brave room 506 had better make sure they don’t break those mirrored glass panes, or they’ll have bad luck for the rest of the semester… or at least until they find their way out of Schermerhorn (which might take even longer).

The actual building this took place in via Shutterstock