Yes, the EC life is as good as they say it is.

Location: 70 Morningside Drive. AKA, across the bridge, right next to IAB and the Law Building, across from Faculty House, or up the stairs from Wien courtyard.

• Nearby dorms: Wien (easy mailroom trips!). And also PresBo’s (soon PresNouche’s) mansion!
• Stores and restaurants: Arts & Crafts, HamDel, Appletree, Friedman’s, SubsConscious, Dunkin Donuts, Hartley Pharmacy, Elysian Fields, Massawa. Right next to Faculty House, and very close to both Chef Mike’s and Chef Don’s.

Cost: $11,574 (projected upperclassmen rate for the 2023-24 school year)

Amenities:

• Bathrooms: Suites have a funky setup that is like a hybrid dorm hybrid private bathroom. It has two sinks, a toilet in a stall, and a shower. 2-person flats have a normal-looking bathroom with a sink, toilet, and shower. All showers have bathtubs, if you’re into that kind of thing.
• AC/Heating: Glorious A/C in the summer, controllable heat in the winter. Unfortunately, no temperature control is enough to mitigate the sweaty mess that is a packed party.
• Lounge: There are lounges on the upper floor of every suite that are rarely used, because all the suites have living rooms. There’s a huge building lounge on the 2nd floor with a piano, TV, and kitchen, which is a nice place to host larger gatherings. There are also computer lounges throughout the building. Within suites, there are large living rooms with new couches.
• Kitchen: One in every suite with a dishwasher, oven, microwave, and full-sized fridge. For an NYC apartment, the kitchens are actually pretty spacious, but if you’re used to anything else they’re pretty small. Lots of cabinet space though! The two-person flats have slightly smaller kitchens with no dishwasher.
• Laundry: In the basement. The machines got replaced this year, so they’re all very nice and shiny and mostly always work.
• Fire escapes: None.
• 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: Two gyms, located on floors 8 and 16. They’ve got treadmills, bikes, and ellipticals in various states of order. Not gonna lie, jogging with a view of Midtown beats Dodge any day. 
• Intra-transportation: It’s a little confusing at first, each suite is actually three floors. Say you like in suite 1602 – you would enter your suite on the 16th floor, and that’s where your kitchen and living room are. A set of stairs inside your suite will take you downstairs to the 15th floor, which has the bedrooms and bathroom. Finally, a set of stairs will take you down one more flight to the 14th floor, nothing is there, but it is another door out of your suite. Two speedy elevators will take you wherever you want to go, as long as you don’t mind frequent stops and big crowds on the weekends.
• Hardwood/carpet: Mix of carpet and hardwood (carpeted halls, hardwood floors in common areas and bedrooms). Linoleum in the kitchen.

Room variety:

• 7 all-single six-person suites. There’s one on each floor! Four singles face campus (pretty sunsets!), two face the park.
• 7 all-single five-person suites. Also one per floor. Three singles face campus, two face the park.
• 56 (eight per floor) suites with three singles facing campus and one double facing the park.
• 35 (five per floor) two-person flats. These have two huge singles (like so big you won’t know what to do with all the space), a bathroom, and kitchen, but no real common area, just a hallway.
• 8 doubles on the sixth floor, each 200 sq. ft. and with their own bathroom.

Numbers:

Famously mostly seniors, and entirely upperclassmen. The housing website says that EC is 83% seniors and 17% juniors. The all-single suites were the first to be taken.

Bwog recommendation:

The crown jewel of Columbia housing, EC does not disappoint. You’ve got a ton of space that you can basically do whatever with – decorate, throw elaborate dinner parties, host a bunch of drunk freshmen during NSOP, you name it. The weekends can get a bit noisy, but nothing crazy, and there is a silent expectation that if you have the EC suite you’ll host everything, so it’s definitely perfect for more outgoing folks. If you’re not into that though, just choose your housemates wisely, and because your suite is all yours, you can have a totally chill year. TLDR: It really just feels like having an apartment in the city, albeit with CUID-only access and slightly cheaper rent.

Resident opinions:

• “The suites are cozy, and the set-up of having two floors is really awesome!”
  
• “For two-person flats, the good things: it’s big enough to host pregames and have people over without the expectation of hosting anything; rooms are huge; the bathroom is shared between two people so you can basically use it whenever; close proximity to everyone else living in EC. But then bad things: no dishwasher, dishes suck; kitchen is a lil small.”
  
• “Grab it before it’s gone! Your last chance to share a house with all your best friends and basically just live a sitcom. The views are amazing, the amenities are great, the common space in the suites is spacious, it’s really easy to have people over, but you never have to get too claustrophobic because you can just go retreat into your own single. Hidden gem: the windowsills in the common area are huge and can hold a lot of fun things (plants! jungle juice! trinkets!)”
  
• “The views are SO FUCKING WORTH IT.”

Gallery

Highrise suites via me & my friend