On its 250th anniversary, Columbia has become more preoccupied with tradition than ever before. What follows are two of my own traditions that I bequeath to my fair alma mater as graduation nears. I am not concerned about taking credit. I am merely a voice for the muses of Morningside. It is far more important to me that they live on past Columbia's bicenquinquagennial anniversary.
First on the list: Fort Awesome. Wein was never an insane asylum, but it captures the feeling far better than Tasti-D-Lite imitates food. In fact, Wein has always been a dorm, but used to be called Johnson. (That's pretty funny, if you think about it.) Alas, a dorm by any other name would smell as uninhabitable.
I certainly felt that way when the rugby team was denied specialty housing (but the culture!) and I was sentenced to the wrong side of Amsterdam Avenue. Living in a Wein double as a junior became my version of walking uphill to school both ways--so don't give me grief for getting lotto number 38 this year.
I can't say I hated Wein the way people often do. Where else would I have honed my Space Invaders skills? Built an immunity to foot fungus? Or learned to stand on a econ textbook and erase the fine line between sink and urinal?
Still, the place has its problems, and they're no mystery to the Columbia community. One is the name above the door. Lawrence A. Wein was a great Columbian and a generous man, but as a Falik, I think I am in a position to say that his is not a particularly marketable name. All Wein Hall needed, it seemed, was an image makeover. Thus was born Fort Awesome.
I never wanted credit for coining the term--better that it materialized out of nowhere--but since I've heard a few other people stake a claim, I might as well step forward. I actually stole the name from an old article in The Onion about an adult who builds his fourth-grade dream house. (In my dream house, they'll put cheese on the quesadillas.)
During my tenure as the inaugural general of Fort Awesome, the name seemed to catch on and--in some small way--ease the pain and loneliness of military life. Calling it "the fort" rolled pride and commiseration into one catchy nickname. And for a moment, once in a great while, we'd smile at Fortuna's inauspicious turn.
I was given an honorable discharge after one semester and made it official policy not to return to my old outpost. I can only hope that some brave, unlucky souls will hold down the fort in my stead and keep the dream alive.
Second: Cookies on the Corner. I returned to Columbia last fall to find Morningside bars all too familiar. I'd seen Nacho Mama's rise and fall like the Japanese military in the first half of the 20th century, waking a sleeping giant: the West End. (We'll call Nacho's velvet rope their Pearl Harbor and end the metaphor before the A-bomb.)
My once beloved Am Caf had perverted itself from an unassuming gathering place into a cacophonous, overcharging, Knowledge-firing Judas. The Heights remained crowded, SoHa sticky, Saints gay. I lacked both the motivation or bursary to drink downtown and the tolerance for neighborhood bars. Thus was born Cookies on the Corner.
Sparked by my own sweet tooth and my preference for relatively fresh air during our unseasonably warm autumn, I began stationing myself on the railing at the southeast corner of 114th and Broadway to distribute cookies, free of charge, to passersby as bars closed for the night.
Thanks to its inception are owed to Ben Austin (we were originally Bens on the Block) and my other suitemates and friends for choosing sweets over--or at least after--spirits. Ideally, CoC has a female participant to curb any suspicions that we might have ill intentions, and it is never done alone. Takers still tend to inquire if they are drugged or poisoned. They aren't, I assure you, but your suspicion would make Nancy Reagan proud.
We always use One Smart Cookie brand cookies--formerly $2.99 at our dear, departed West Side Market and now $3.49 at the well-lit but much-maligned Morton Williams. Whatever time of night, style of cookie, or type of weather, they never cease to provide grand entertainment.
Cookies have proven to be the great common denominator, loved by those sober and drunk, prosperous and homeless, lonely and soon-to-get-lucky alike. Some partakers barely break their stride; others stop to chat about their evening's victories and misadventures.
Cookies on the Corner is really about cookie-loving people loving cookie-loving people. Aside from my occasional attempt to convert people to Christianity and this one jerk varsity basketball player who once threw a cookie (missing whatever his target was, I assume) exchanges over cookies are harmonious as could be. Even those who decline a cookie--people walking alone, with Koronet's, or with headphones, empirical evidence shows--smile as they pass.
Look for me on the corner in the weeks ahead. Take a cookie. Take a load off. Take notice and keep the cookies coming after I'm gone.
Ben Falik is a Columbia College senior majoring in urban studies. He was Food Editor on Spectator's 125th, 126th, and 127th Associate Boards.