Resident photobwogger Sumaiya Ahmed snapped some photos of the mega construction efforts tearing up campus and disrupting summer pick-up soccer games. Thousands (or 1332 CC and SEAS) eager first-years arrive with parents and tuition dollars in just a week! Will Columbia Facilities make it in time? More photos after the jump…

After weeks of breathless waiting, university administrators found out yesterday how their school fared this year on that outsized arbiter of institutional excellence, the US News and World Report college rankings. Nothing much changed, at least in the range Columbia cares about: the span between number one and number nine, where it’s been stuck for […]

The Samuel Jackson flick Snakes on a Plane will hit theaters everywhere tomorrow with perhaps more internet hype and a longer Wikipedia article than any new release in history. It’s also most likely the only film to inspire spinoffs before even reaching the viewing public, including–but not limited to–SoaP Sudoku, the prequel Snakes on a […]

They go fish shopping! According to an anonymous tipster, a CC student ran into President Bollinger summering in Cape Cod, but didn’t recognize him until PrezBo had fled the scene. Saddened, she posted this Craigslist missed connection: Grey-haired First Amendment scholar at the fish store – w4m – 20 Reply to: pers-194280482@craigslist.org Date: 2006-08-14, 11:55PM […]

Winner of a bronze medal at the 2002 Olympics, figure skater Timothy Goebel, 25, (the first American to land a quadruple jump in competition, and the first skater in the world to land a quadruple salchow) is enrolling at GS this Fall. Now that he’s broken all the records, Goebel will strip off the flashy […]

As of the time of this post, Columbia’s band of guerilla videographers has garnered 83,641 views of its prank on Columbia’s studious studentry over at YouTube, launching it to 65th place on the site’s weekly ratings. Pretty good for a piece with no poorly drawn cartoon characters speaking in Japanese! Bwog would submit, however, that […]

You may not have heard of him, and you may not even care once we tell you about him, but Professor Emeritus J.W. Smit cared about you. The only known person to have taught all four Core classes (Art Hum, Music Hum, Lit Hum, and CC), the Nobility and Civility fixture shaped the Curriculum since […]

Not to be outdone, Madonna has hopped on the African-orphan-hugging bandwagon with a $3 million donation to J. Sachs’ Millennium Voices foundation, which will help villages in the malaria-infested African nation of Malawi. The rocker chalks up her newfound generosity to having had kids of her own, as well as the giving spirit of Jewish […]

This is not the day to boycott corporate coffee. Our green apron-clad friends over at Starbucks are giving out free iced coffee and cafe con leche until 3 pm today— presumably at all NYC locations. With a feels-like temperature of 103, this is quite a public service. Enjoy it while you can.

As if you didn’t already have enough reason to go, Rack & Soul–the newish fried chicken place on Broadway at 109th–has ranked a respectable 47th on New York Magazine’s invaluable Best Cheap Eats list. In the other direction, on 131st st., Dinosaur BBQ came in 65th. Because, you know, Manhattan above 96th is only good […]

A few days ago, the University of Pennsylvania rolled out its shiny new plan for a huge construction project on its eastern edge. Bwog’s mind jumps to Columbia’s own troubled efforts in Manhattanville—but the parallels are a little more complicated. A few facts: – The cost of Penn’s expansion is about the same, $6.7 billion […]

Part of an ongoing series in which Bwog takes you to the less traveled corners of our metropolis (less traveled by CU students, anyway). Remember Francie Nolan, the young protagonist of Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? She was thrifty and imaginative, a voracious reader, nimble with her hands. She worked her little Irish […]

Facebook whistle-blower Jon Ricci, who claims not to be affiliated with Columbia University, has outed the 31 members of Columbia Facebook group “Put Up or Shut Up.” Ricci sent an email to Columbia’s powers-that-be about those 30 men and one confused woman who advocate delivering “ovary punches, rabbit kicks, and haymakers” to those bossy females […]

Forty-seven years ago today, in Allahabad, India, Bwog’s favorite international soccer tycoon was born. And it took him this long to get his own Wikipedia entry. Cheers, professor!

Bwog noted in February that iPods, newly present in Lerner vending machines, had apparently become as necessary to our daily lives as chips and condoms. In today’s edition of Education Life, the New York Times makes the same observation, and discloses that the same number of iPods have been stolen (four) as have been bought. […]