The stately entrance of your potential new home!

Still unsure of where you’ll be living next year? As housing selection heats up, Bwog brings you another Housing Review! Nussbaum is a beautiful building, and what it lacks in new facilities it makes up with in high ceilings and a chill vibe.

Location: 600 West 113th St (colloquially known as Nuss)
• Nearby Dorms: McBain, Watt, relatively close to Hogan and Broadway. Close enough to the frat rows on 113th and 114th that screaming will reach your window on lower floors on sorority formal nights.
• Stores and Restaurants: Nussbaum & Wu, Milano, Community, Dig Inn, Amigo’s, Amir’s and fantastically, International Wine and Spirits

Cost: All upperclassmen housing for Columbia has stabilized at $9,292

Amenities:
• Bathrooms: Bathrooms vary among suites, with some rooms that have private bathroom, some single use bathrooms and others with communal bathrooms with stalls. If bathrooms are a big stumbling block for you, Bwog advises that you go check your desired suites out in person.
• AC/Heating: No AC, and steam-powered heating. You won’t be cold, but you may be plagued by the ghostly noises of clanking pipes.
• Kitchen/Lounge: Very few suites have lounges (mostly in the C-line suites). However, all suites have a kitchen or share a kitchen with an adjacent suite. The kitchens are generally modern, and have a stove, oven, sink, microwave and refrigerator and are easy to cook in thanks to copious counter space. Kitchens do have a tendency to become messy very quickly, which hinders cooking pleasure.
• Laundry: In the basement. A decent amount of washers and dryers, although you may need to wait at times for them.
• Computers/Printers: There are no public computers, but there is a convenient printer in the lobby.
• Gym: Nope, no gym to work off the daily bagels from Nussbaum & Wu.
• Intra-transportation: There are two elevators and a well-lit set of stairs. The elevators are incredibly slow, and one feels as if you will die any moment within, so you’ll have to opt for the stairs if you’re running late to anything.
• Wifi: Relatively fast Wifi and Ethernet are both available.
• Hardwood/Carpet: Entirely hardwood or fake hardwood.
• Facilities/Maintenance: Nussbaum has some completely undergrad floors, but others are reserved for graduate students and non-affiliates. Consequently, Nussbaum is home to a lovely non-Columbia maintenance crew, who clean the kitchens and bathrooms around once or twice a week. Maintenance requests are resolved very quickly, and the crew is generally lovely to be around, and is guaranteed to cheer you up, even if you just had an Orgo midterm.

Room Variety:
• Doubles: There are 82 doubles, varying from a tiny 154 sq. feet to a decently sized 210 sq. feet. Walk-through doubles generally come to a total of about 220 sq. feet.
• Singles: There are only 35 singles, but some of them come to a spacious 160 sq. feet. (bigger than many of the doubles?), but others can be as small as 100 sq. feet.
• Rooms on higher floors facing the river have beautiful views.
• Large windows and extremely high ceilings can make smaller rooms in Nussbaum seem more spacious than they are.

Numbers:
• It was easy to get a decent double last year due to recent renovations in McBain, which made it less nasty of an option.
• Sophomores seeking singles may find Nuss a difficult option, with the last dropping out at around 20/1650.

Bwog Recommendation:
• Nussbaum is a good dorm for rising sophomores who are social but not necessarily in a ‘lit’ way. It’s also more ~aesthetic~ due to the nice white walls, high ceilings, good lighting and hardwood floors.
• Nussbaum isn’t a real suite-style building. Like the LLC, rooms are split into suite-like shapes with a kitchen and sometimes lounge, but you don’t pick into the entire suite as a group, and you generally pick into doubles/singles near one another if you’re in a group through sophomore split-up. This can be a blessing and a curse; suites mean you may be able to get in with your friends, and you may find some new people to bond with due to the more communal living style. However, if you don’t get close to your suite, it doesn’t feel much different than corridor-style living.
• RA’s are relaxed in general, but there isn’t a sense of community on most floors. It feels like you are pretty much your own person (unless you do something seriously stupid).

Resident Opinions:
• “Nuss is quiet, but not oppressively so. Although there are parties on weekends, they won’t keep you up on weeknights.”
• “Nuss used to be known as a more antisocial dorm, but due to the demand for McBain, there seems to be more sociable people in Nuss in recent years.”
• “Some Nuss rooms can be beautiful, others less so.”
• “Suite living can be a blessing or a curse. The walls are thin, so if you end up as a quiet one in a relatively loud suite, you may struggle. Shared bathrooms and living spaces tend to get dirty quickly, despite efficient maintenance and cleaning.”

Floorplan via Columbia Housing