Where’s a lost soul supposed to spend eternity around here anyway?

We can all agree that there must be some ghosts on this campus—and not just your ex-Hinge dates that you avoid every time you run into them in John Jay. Seemingly all of my friends have ghosts in their dorms/apartments (with names) that get up to all kinds of mischief: opening doors, living inside cups and causing other benign mayhem. That’s what you get for living in a pre-war building I guess.

It makes you wonder though: did this ghost choose to live in my Nuss double? Or were they trapped here in some unfortunate accident that will cause them to suffer with thin walls and excessive heating indefinitely? I’m not sure how much autonomy ghosts are able to exercise, but we know that there’s definitely a hierarchy of campus locations to hang out at for all eternity.

We asked our staffers the following question: If you were a ghost, where on campus would you haunt? These are the definitive best places to haunt on campus.

Academic Buildings

  • Kent Hall elevator. Everyone laments the speed of the Hamilton elevator, but real ones know that the one in Kent is the most cursed elevator on campus.
  • The bottom level of Pupin. Considering the number of lives lost resulting from the development of the atomic bomb, it only seems appropriate to haunt the place of its invention.
  • The murals of Sophocles and Whatshisface in Hamilton. You can change their poses very slightly every day in an act of classic ghost mischief—nobody pays attention to them anyway. 
  • The art history lounge on Schermerhorn 8. It would be like haunting a museum!
  • The top floor of SIPA. (For the views.)
  • Philosophy Hall but like a ghost from the pre-1930s in order to interfere with the invention of the FM radio.
  • Schermerhorn Extension. I don’t think this one requires further explanation.

Libraries

  • Butler Stacks. You’d get all the opportunities to read those old books and haunt the most Aesthetically Hauntable place on campus.
  • The first floor of Milstein. Time to sit your ghostly ass down in a Milstein Green Chair.
  • Math Library. It’s time to make the Math Library relevant.
  • The East Asian library stacks. We love the horror movie vibes with an academic twist.

Dorms

  • EC. That dorm needs a good, sexy hijinks-causing ghost.
    • Specifically, the EC Barnard bench. You could whisper in first-years’ ears “leaveeeeeeeee leave while you still caaaaaaaaaan they are not worth this embarrassemeeeeeeent.”
  • The Hartley Classroom. Needs a ghost in there.
  • My freshman year room in the quad. I’m folding your laundry and organizing your pens because I hate messy places.
  • That one 923 sq ft triple in one of the brownstones. There is absolutely room for another person (entity?) in there.
  • The tunnels between John Jay, Wallach, and Hartley to get to the laundry rooms. Possibly the creepiest place I’ve been in my three years here. (And I’ve sobbed in the Schermerhorn extension stairwell.)
  • Furnald. Especially the lobby and the basement. Note: you might be competing with a preexisting ghost since the building was named in honor of the project funder’s deceased son, Royal Blackler Furnald (CC 1901).

Dining Halls

  • The dining halls. The lines are so long, it’s no wonder you expired there.
  • The trash bin area of Hewitt. There is actually something so cursed about this little nook.
  • The Ferris action grill. Think of the chaos you could cause in the quesadilla line!
  • The JJ’s smoothie/milkshake station. You could use your powers for good or evil—either fix the milkshake machines or break them even more.

Outdoors

  • The huge lamps outside Low Library. Especially at night, especially if people are making out by them. Ominously flickering the lights on and off.
  • The Dick Fountains. Become the Lady of the Dick Fountains and spray student-athletes for funsies.
  • The Chastity Gates. #Catholicism #PureOfHeartAndMind.
  • The Alexander Hamilton statue. We all know you memorized the lyrics to every song in Hamilton during your freshman year of high school. It’s time to put them to use!

Miscellaneous

  • Lerner Black Box. The Kingsmen are never going to see your antics coming during the next Glass House Rocks.
  • PrezBo’s Penthouse. Face it, it’s the only time you’d be able to live in a penthouse.
  • The Barnard Tunnels. It’s time to confuse all of the Columbia men trying to find Hewitt!
  • Dodge Pool. Tell all the CC people that the British did this to you because you failed the Swim Test.
  • The closet where they keep the Roaree costume. It’d be a fun little puppetry moment; the kids will love it!

Ghosting Collage via Julia Tolda