The ~most mature~ of the Barnard dorms provides an excellent home for your first year of college.

Location: 116th St & Broadway.

Nearby dorms: The rest of the dorms in the Quad (Sulz, Reid, and Hewitt), Elliott, the 600s, Schapiro, Carman, Furnald, 47 Claremont.

Stores and restaurants: Morton Williams, Pret A Manger, Shake Shack Sweetgreen, Starbucks, UPS, Ivy League Stationers.

Cost: $10,826 per year.

Amenities: 

Bathrooms: One per floor, with two showers, two sinks, and two toilets each. (The 8th-floor bathroom has 3 sinks.) On floors 3, 5, and 7 the bathrooms are gender-inclusive, and on floors 4, 6, and 8 the bathrooms are women only. All bathrooms are cleaned daily by Facilities. People come from across the quad for these bathrooms, so be prepared to wait for a shower.
AC/Heating: No AC, and radiator heating is turned on around October. You aren’t allowed to have a window AC unit, so bring standing fans for August and September when Brooks feels like an actual oven.
Kitchen/Lounge: There aren’t any kitchen spaces in Brooks, but you can use the Sulz lounge, where people often gather to cook with friends or watch TV. In the lobby of Brooks, there are two additional lounges: one is very quiet and a favorite study spot and the other has a piano and is often used for club meetings.
Laundry: One washing machine and 2 dryers between Brooks and Reid. Around the corner on Sulz, there are two washing machines and two dryers. The cost of these machines is covered in what you already pay for housing.
Fire Escapes: None.
Gym: No gym, but the Barnard Fitness Center is just across the Quad in the basement of Barnard Hall.
Bike Storage: No bike storage, but there’s a Citibike rack just outside the building on 116th Street.
Intra-transportation: Two elevators that are surprisingly fast, for an old dorm.
Hardwood/Carpet: Linoleum tiles in rooms, carpeted hallways.

Room variety:

Corridor-style double, triple, and quads. There’s one triple on the 8th floor, with doubles and quads on the rest of the floors.
Floors 3 through 7 are pretty consistent in layout and size of rooms, with 3 quads, 4 doubles, and 1 RA single on each floor. The best Brooks room is the walk-through double, affectionately known as the “dingle”.  (It’s two rooms connected by a door, and it’s like living in a single, in a double.)  All of the quads have 3 rooms: two bedrooms and a common space with all the desks. Each room in the quad has its own door that leads out to the hall.
On floor 8 the rooms used to be lounge spaces, so the layout is very different. These quads don’t have a common room, so beds and desks are all in one room.

Bwog recommendation:

Brooks gets kind of a bad rap. Yes, it does get hot in August and September, so prepare to hang out in the air-conditioned Sulz lounges. But the architecture makes it feel old time-y in a nice way, and there’s something inspiring about thinking of the decades of Barnard students that lived here before you. I lived in a quad, and I loved having the choice of multiple rooms to be in: you can close your bedroom door and sleep while your roommate studies with the light on in the center room, which is really nice.  Also, the Brooks bathrooms are truly the best in the Quad.

Resident opinions:

“Take advantage of the Brooks lounge, it’s super cute and comfy!”

“If you’re in a quad, it can get cramped pretty fast.”

“I had a view of Shake Shack through the window by my bed.”

“Commiserating over Brooks is a great way to break the ice during NSOP, but I came to really love it.”

“Bring extension cords or surge suppressors as the outlets are few and far between.”

“There are these beautiful ornate staircases leading down to the lobby, and I always felt so classy walking down them.”

“Absolutely loved living in Brooks!”

Brooks Hall via Bwog Archives