The thing about buildings, is that they have names, and the thing about names, is that I can count the number of letters in those names and I have thoughts on that. 

I will be ranking these buildings on a scale of 1-10 conforming to the traditional binary value of numbers, although if I could change it, five would be the lowest and four would be the highest.

  1. Barnard Hall: 11 letters. Stunning, incredible, brilliant. In addition to being my birthday, Yao Ming’s jersey number, and a fun thing to multiply digits by, 11 is a perfect number. It looks like two pals, standing together; the little lines at the bottoms of the “1” grounding the value overall but the flick at the top promising there is more to come (which here, I guess would be 12). Though the elevators may be slow, in terms of number of letters in its name, Barnard Hall is the world’s best building. 10/10
  2. Hamilton: Eight letters. Eight is fun, there is room for creativity. Make a smiley face in the circles, make the whole number into a snowman, turn it on its side and make a handy dandy pair of sunglasses. Though it may seem smaller than others, if you change your frame of reference, it can be a lot! Eight slices of Koronets, 8am and 8pm, the feeling when I ate (8) (haha get it) those eight slices of Koronets, or eight floors of Hamilton itself. Now, some may argue that eight floors of Hamilton or slices of pizza may be too much, and while I agree with the former, the wonder of the number makes up for it. 7.5/10
  3. The Diana Center: 14 letters. Turns out, “the” is officially part of the name of this location, where in addition to a lovely third floor study room, has an acceptable number of letters. Fourteen is the paperclip of numbers: no one thinks to use them, but when available, are an adequate choice. 5/10
  4. Butler Library: 13 letters. While many people dislike the number 13, believing it to be cursed, I dislike it for another reason. In most computer fonts, the number “3” is visually jarring, a skinnier upper curve than on the bottom, and the lack of symmetry displeases me. 3/10
  5. John Jay Dining Hall: 17 letters. Again, “17” is a visually unappealing number. It lacks the curves and finesse a much superior number, such as “38” might have, yet doesn’t have the familiarity of an “72”. However, it ranks higher than the previous number, 16. The sound I make upon seeing the number 17 is “eh,” which I feel sums up all my opinions on the matter. 2.5/10
  6. Schermerhorn Hall: 16 letters. When I was a kid, I fell off of a sled that had the number 16 on it, and since then, I’ve despised it more than I hate trying to spell Schermerhorn Hall (which, for the record, I had to copy and paste both times). Disgusting. 1/10

A beautifully rendered depiction of the author when writing this post via the BBC