I just really, really hate the cold.

Staff-Writer-turned-Spelunker Henry Golub totally explored Columbia’s tunnel system and lived to tell the tale. He also likes inflating his word count and eating burritos. Beneath Columbia’s campus—below Spec’s lair—lies an extensive tunnel system where the school used to run maze experiments on NYU students. Few people have since entered the labyrinth, but those who have […]

Bwog was tipped about an interesting addition to a double in the LLC. Check out the picture and post below. Sometimes even a double can feel lonely, which may explain why a pair of roommates chose to welcome a life-size poster of baseball player Ty Cobb into their home. Now, it serves as a welcoming and terrifying surprise […]

While you were still cramming for that last final (or perhaps drinking the memory of it into oblivion), one of your talented peers was off spray-painting walls underground. Perhaps inspired by our own Mark Hay’s forays into the tunnels earlier this semester, Columbian artist and “bandit belle” Angelique Chandy decided to try her hand at tagging, […]

Bwog respects our heritage/amorous affair by posting each issue of The Blue and White. The latest issue, available this week, has a lot of good stuff: a debate on the relative merits of shaving or not, the history of Columbia’s forgotten post-1968 protests, and a conversation with Improv Everywhere’s Charlie Todd (all available soon on Bwog). From this […]

English professor/Shakespeare godhead James Shapiro has a new book coming out, and he’s looking to shake up the authorship debate. (The Chronicle of Higher Education) Sarko’s appearance Monday wouldn’t have been complete without his famous personal lectern, designed to make the height-conscious president appear a few inches taller. Bonjour, mon petit Napoleon! (The Daily Mail) […]

For those of you staying in East Campus or McBain over break, Columbia University Facilities will be using the time to fix your residence. In McBain, elevator repairs will mean that both elevators will be out on Monday, December 29th. In EC, the story’s slightly less chipper, and quite a bit longer. Facilites “has identified […]

A Bwog daily editor reports on a distressing development in the world of tunneling: A year ago, your correspondent made a bid for tunneling immortality. With sharpie in hand, I went in search of the Columbia tunnel system’s holy grail–a Manhattan Project-era cyclotron rumored to be somewhere in the upper campus tunnel system. It turns […]

If you’re like us, you’ve spent many a seminar playing “guess the biggest secret of the person sitting next to you.” We’ve concocted a twisted past habit or two, but we didn’t think of naked urban spelunking until this article in the Times today provided us with ample imagery. The piece has weird Pupin lore, overt fetishization, hip post-industrial aesthetics, “human […]

The system’s far more intriguing history is written on its walls, says Bwogger Armin Rosen. Tunnel graffiti is a running history of everyone who found their explorations momentous enough to permanently commemorate…. But there’s nothing boastful or egotistical about the hastily-scrawled notes found on practically every flat and indeed most of the cylindrical surfaces in […]

New Yorkers may spend more time underground than denizens of every other town, so says the New York Times. But those of you planning to explore the Columbia tunnel system had better do it now, reports Bwog trailblazer Armin Rosen. Because after almost forty years of  the tunnels being locked, guarded and officially closed off […]

After 20 years of safe subterranean spelunking, admin. to shut off access to fun…oops, dangerous chemicals… …and will make damn sure you stay in your boring science and math classes… …but the utter thrill of manipulating financial aid loopholes remains. Go agency!  Er…go agency? Meanwhile, GS students, as always, find a “nontraditional” way to cheat the system […]

So, the folks at Gothamist have brought this picture (via flickr) to our attention. According to the information on flickr, this dude is a professor, and he’s standing in the tunnels, our tunnels. Does anyone know his name? Maybe we could send him in as a post-deadline entry to the IvyGate hot prof contest.  

Much lore surrounds the Columbia Tunnels, but also much fact, and a tunneling SEAS ’01 student–operating under the nom de guerre Benoit–has made his e-mail address availible for those curious about Columbia’s subterranean avenues. Bwog staffer Brendan Ballou contacted Benoit nine months ago for his article on another tunneler (and all-around badass) Ken Hechtman, and […]

As Bwog was taking a shortcut to its French class, it discovered this wonderful display of charity in the tunnels. And although it’s not uranium, it’s clear that someone down there really cares.