Rainy Day View

Bwog Housing Coverage 2K16 Continues! Today’s residence hall is… Claremont (as it is colloquially referred to)!

Location: 47 Claremont

• Nearby dorms: Pretty far from the rest of Columbia’s dorms, but it’s close to Elliot, the Barnard Quad, and the 600s.
• Stores and restaurants: Vine and Mo Willies are closest followed by a few Halal carts and M2M. You’ll start to frequent some great places north of campus you probably never bothered to walk to before: Chapati House, Jin Ramen, Pisticci, the blessing that is Oasis Juice Bar, and Falafel on Broadway. 1020, Hungarian, and West Side are ridiculously far away.

Cost:

• $10,120 (same as Watt, Woodbridge, EC, Hogan, SICs, and Ruggles)

Amenities:

• Bathrooms: One per suite, which kind of sucks for the seven person suites. But quality-wise they are on a level with a nice Holiday Inn bathroom so at least there’s that. Also they are cleaned weekly.
• AC/Heating: No AC, but generally good ventilation after the first brutal month of late summer. Expect to overheat in the winter. There are weird tiny radiators in some of the rooms: a young man with a Northern European accent came in to do some tests on them in midwinter but they still seemed to be malfunctioning or at least to be too hot for the unseasonably warm spring.
• Kitchen/Lounge: Decently sized kitchen until you realize that it’s also the only common space in the suite. All appliances are functional and they include: stove, oven, microwave, sink, and large refrigerator. If you cook often, beware of setting off the suite fire alarm. You can turn it off by pressing a button but it is also extremely sensitive.
• Laundry: Basement laundry room. Never too busy.
• Fire Escapes: In almost every room. Which you are NOT ALLOWED to use. This is enforced :/
• Computers/Printers: Computer lab in the basement with one printer. Weird old map on the wall is fun to stare at while waiting for your stuff to print.
• Gym: No gym.
• Bike Storage: Yes.
• Intra-transportation: One elevator, which is unfortunately the only way to get to the basement. Not terribly slow, but annoying if all you have to do is print off a single sheet of paper.
• Hardwood/Carpet: Hardwood.

Room variety:

• 6 3-person suites; all singles.
• 6 4-person suites; all singles.
• One 5-person suite on each floor and one 5-person suite on the first floor; one double and the rest singles in each.
• 10 7-person suites; two large doubles, one large single, one medium single, and one infamously small single (as little as 80 sq. ft.).

Numbers:

• 3-Person Suites: 30/1119 last year, 25/628 the year before
• 4-Person Suites: 27/2425 last year, 20/543 the year before
• 6-Person Suite on 1st FL: 20/1335 last year, 10/264 the year before
• 7-Person Suites: 10/1378 last year, 10/2277 the year before

Bwog recommendation:

You will be far away from most of campus. That is either something you are kind of into or something you merely put up with. After a year of living in one of the suites, even one that is made up of all singles, the common space gets to be very cramped. Still, its nice to live a bit detached from the rest of the campus. Nothing beats coming home from a depressing EC party to a place that isn’t EC. But you will also definitely realize that SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) isn’t a myth if you live on one of the lower floors. You will either be shafted or face out onto Claremont Avenue which is currently under construction (thanks to the new Barnard Library). Still, it’s a pretty good place to live compared with other Sophomore housing options and the shitty NYC apartment Seniors will have to settle for after graduation.

Resident opinions:

• “The wind tunnel (especially on 120th between Riverside and Broadway) is insane and definitely brutal in the winter.”
• “Not as far away from things as everyone thinks.”
• “There’s a room in our 4 person suite that is about 80 square feet. We call it the ascetic closet.”

Gallery: