Housing Reviews 2025: Wien Hall

Don’t ask people what they do in their sinks!

Location: 411 West 116th Street

Nearby dorms: East Campus

Stores and restaurants: Haji’s Deli (formerly Hamilton Deli), Arts and Crafts, Appletree Deli

Cost: $13,222 (projected upperclassmen rate for the 2025-26 academic year).

Amenities:

Bathrooms: Multi-use gendered bathrooms on each floor, ~three stalls and three showers each. Most floors also have a single use ADA bathroom.
AC/Heating: No AC. Very effective steam heat.
Kitchen/Lounge: Each floor has its own lounge with a microwave, stovetop, and sink (full kitchen with oven on the second floor). There is a very spacious and beautiful lounge on the ground floor, with a grand piano.
Laundry: Laundry room with nine washers and dryers for the entire building on the second floor.
Computers/Printers: There is a computer lab on the second floor. This lab has a printer, and there is a second in the entranceway.
Gym: Nope! You are close enough to Dodge.
Intra-transportation: Two (pretty fast) elevators, three staircases.
Hardwood/Carpet: Plastic hardwood.
Wi-fi: Yes.
Bonus: Every room comes with a sink! Mail center is in the basement. Columbia Housing says “Traffic related to construction on the Columbia Law School building may impact the Wien Courtyard during Academic Year 25-26. Work hours will be between 9 am- 5 pm, Monday-Friday”.

Room Variety:

283 singles; these hover around 120 square feet, though the -44 line runs large (145 square feet) until the tenth floor. Floors 10 through 12 have lower square footage but nicer views.
16 doubles; these are around 200 square feet, slightly smaller than a typical Carman double.
29 walk-through doubles, eight of which are classified as “big.” Big walk-through doubles can be a combined 290 square feet and are the next best thing after a single. Normal walk-through doubles are around 250 square feet, asymmetrically distributed.

Numbers:

From Columbia Housing: “Room Selection 2024 data shows that the students who selected into this building were 63% juniors, 24% seniors, and 13% sophomores.”

Rising juniors with anything but a very low lottery number should be able to pick into Wien.

Bwog’s Recommendation:

Wien is a decent place to live. It is almost entirely singles, with a few doubles. The doubles tend to go to sophomores. Some of the smaller singles are in pairs with a private hallway and share a sink—these show up as suites, so there might be some available for your two-person group if all of the regular singles are gone! The rooms are not particularly large, but have a reasonable shape and most contain a very generously sized closet, with a rod for hangers and several shelves. The ninth floor has super high ceilings (about two feet higher than the other floors) for no apparent reason. The ninth floor is also one of three floors that have a lounge. Therefore, the best rooms in Wien are east facing and on the ninth floor.
The rooms can get very hot, due to the old heating system and lack of AC. The bathrooms are fine, they have good and reliable water pressure. Each floor lounge has a table, couch & chairs, and a TV in addition to the kitchen. The kitchens are pretty nice. To the east of the building, only the president’s house and Faculty House are between Wien and Morningside park, so especially the higher floors (six and above) have a fantastic view, very similar to that from EC. The mailroom being located in the basement is almost a luxury, as is the close proximity to Fac Shack and Fac House dining halls during the week. Wien is great if you want a comfortable, reliable, unexceptional living situation. PS – take this old Bwog quiz to see what kind of Wien sink you are. Look at this 2017 article about anti-Trump graffiti in Wien to reflect on the passage of time and ponder our current historical moment.

Resident Opinions:

“Sinks”
“I eat too much Fac Shack”
“Pretty quiet”
“Having the Mail Center in the basement saved me many trips outside in gross weather.”
“I don’t know anyone on my floor. Not even my roommate.”