Housing Reviews 2020: East Campus (Highrise)

Beautiful EC, crown jewel of partying seniors and people looking for killer views of the Greatest City in the World™.

Location: 70 Morningside Drive. For those of you who aren’t a GPS, it’s right next to IAB on upper campus (Ancel Plaza) or via staircase in the Wien courtyard.

Nearby dorms: Wien and Plimpton…I guess. You can also wave hello to PrezBo’s mansion!
Stores and restaurants: Arts & Crafts, HamDel, Appletree, Friedman’s, SubsConscious, Dunkin Donuts under Plimpton, Hartley Pharmacy, Elysian Fields, and Max Caffe at a stretch

Cost: Standardized at $9,872/year for the 2019-2020 academic year. (Prices have not been set for 2020-2021)

Amenities:

Bathrooms: Every suite (even the 2-person flats) have two sinks, a toilet in a stall, and a shower. They’re cleaned for you every week.
AC/Heating: Yes! The A/C is great for the first part of the fall, but don’t expect it to make a dent in the heat of 8 million first years getting drunk in your common space. You’re gonna have to crack a window or something.
Lounge: There are lounges on the upper floor of every suite that are absolutely huge and get great natural light. There’s also a huge lounge on the 2nd floor with a piano and TV and study lounges on floors 12, 14, and 20.
Kitchen: One in every suite with a dishwasher, an oven, and a full-sized fridge (no more hotplates!) No microwave, though there is one in the 6th-floor lounge if needed. They’re pretty small with not a ton of counter space, but there’s a table in the common area if push comes to shove. Cleaning them is up to you and your suitemates.
Laundry: In the basement. There are a lot of machines, but can get pretty busy.
Fire escapes: lol no
Bike storage: Available in the Wien courtyard.
Computers/printers: There are computer lounges with one printer each on floors 10 and 18, and there are two printers in the lobby.
Gym: 2, located on floors 8 and 16. They’ve got treadmills, bikes and ellipticals for when the walk to Dodge is just too daunting.
Intra-transportation: A staircase within your suite will take you from the bedrooms to the common area and allows you to enter from your floor or the floor below you, which I think is neat. Two decently fast elevators will take you wherever you want to go as well, as long as you don’t mind frequent stops and big crowds on the weekends. If all else fails (or both the elevators are broken) there are entrances to the stairwell at both ends of the hallway.
Hardwood/carpet: Mix of carpet and hardwood (carpeted halls, hardwood floors in common areas and bedrooms). Some kitchens have linoleum floors.

Room variety:

7 all-single six-person suites. There’s one on each floor!
7 all-single five-person suites. Also one/floor
56 (eight per floor) suites with three singles and one double (which faces Morningside Park).
35 (five per floor) two-person flats. The RA on each floor lives in one of these. The singles are large, and flats have a bathroom and kitchen, but no common area.
8 doubles on the sixth floor, each 200 sq. ft. and with their own bathroom.

Numbers:

Due to the new system, Housing hasn’t released the cut-offs from 2019. Bwog has filled in what we know from our data, and included the 2018 and 2017 data for context.

Two-Person Flats
- 2019: 30/1364
- 2018: 30/1493
- 2017: 30/1445
Doubles
- 2019: 20/2963
- 2018: 20/2642
- 2017: 10/2495
Six-Person Suites:
- 2019: approx. 30/2177
- 2018: 30/487
- 2017: 30/300
Five-Person All-Single Suites:
- 2019: Sometime between 30/331-352 (the liveblog from last year is a bit unclear)
- 2018: 30/236
- 2017: 30/301
Five-Person Suites with a double
- 2019: approx. 22/10 (a bit slower than in previous years, if this data is right but not by much)
- 2018: 30/2947
- 2017: 30/2868

Bwog recommendation:

If you don’t mind a little noise on the weekends (and a lot of noise on the weekdays), East Campus is the perfect place to party (or study) away your senior year. With tons of space to host your friends, and occasionally random first-years who show up due to the promise of free alcohol, even if you end up in the double or a tiny single, you still have some space to yourself, while also getting some really great natural light and stunning views of Upper Manhattan without the Real Adult price tag. EC has had problems with fire alarms in recent years, but the threat of ignoring an alarm and burning to death is worth living it large in your final years (just kidding, always go outside for fire alarms! they’re there for a reason!)

Resident opinions: [Ed. Note: Opinions were given from people who were EC residents between 2017 and 2019. Some of them lived in EC during the Year Without Stoves, which reflects in their responses. But never fear because the stoves have since returned!)

“Living in EC is waiting 10 minutes for an elevator filled with people you know well enough that you should probably start a conversation, but don’t know well enough for it to not still seem awkward.Living in EC is not only hearing your roommate having sex through the wall, but feeling your roommate having sex through the wall… (Please! I beg you… put your bed on a non-shared wall or move it out slightly when you’re banging. Thanks!)
Living in EC is looking down your hallway at LionLaundry bags and wondering, how can you live alone for four years and still not know how to do laundry?

Living in EC is going to a suite that’s not Bandsuite™ and realizing this place is actually pretty sad without decorations.

Living in EC is going to take out your trash but being stopped in your tracks because the rest of the people on your floor piled their garbage in the room with the chute.

Living in EC is studying fine in your room while the rest of your suite rages upstairs ❤ Seriously, the parties never really bothered my studying or sleeping unless people sat outside the bathroom talking (I would yell at them and they would leave) or a song came on that everyone screamed the words to (just have to sit through those few minutes).

Living in EC is not being able to boil water because they took out all the stoves and replaced them with barely functional hot plates. But, hey, you can always just microwave your ramen.

Living in EC is investing in new earplugs for the seemingly never-ending fire alarm tests because you’d rather just burn than walk down 20 flights of stairs.

Living in EC is sign-ins. Lots of sign-ins.

Living in EC is spending all year with 4-5 of your best friends with even more just down the hall! 🙂

Living in EC is really the only choice for your senior year!”
“Sure! I liked living in EC overall. Bedroom space and common space are segmented nicely with the multiple floors. It’s a great place to live when you’re close with your suitemates, although you can also avoid them when you want to. Cons: the noise/ disruption. I recommend investing in some good earplugs if you’re a light sleeper. Also, there was no stove, but hopefully that’s fixed by now.”
“idk if they still have functioning kitchens anymore but that was good, also living with your friends senior year is fun. Living on the top floor does suck on the weekends because elevators are always full and whenever there are fire drills you have to walk down a shitload of stairs but the views are SO FUCKING WORTH IT. Also, it was the biggest single I had and it’s nice to be able to have the space to host hangouts and parties and all that fun stuff.”
“If you have a two-person senior group, arguably the best option on campus. Yes, you could try to go for one of the Watt apartments but being in EC gives you the customary flare of senior living and close proximity to campus. While you don’t have any living area, the rooms verge on 160 sq ft, so you have more than enough space to invite a few friends over. Only have to share a bathroom and a kitchen with one person, so a major improvement over the corridor-style living you might have been used to over the past few years. Gives you a taste of suite living, but you could also go awhile without seeing your roommate, which gives a greater sense of privacy. All rooms face campus so you get really nice views of Low, Butler, and the Hudson plus some amazing sunsets. The negatives are those generically associated with living in EC: crowded lobby, slow elevators, sometimes noisy. But if you can deal with these, one of the best options (as shown by them running out quickly)”