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Free Lerner 6
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 19, 2007
As Columbia builds on its northwest corner and makes the argument for a grand expansion into Manhattanville, there remains a gaping hole in the University’s case for more space: Lerner 6. Since Lerner Hall’s construction in 1999, the conspicuous vacancy of the floor, which currently has no fixed use or development plans despite the shortage of activity and study spaces available to students, has become a running joke. Worse still, its only designated use—to provide storage for Columbia Catering Services—is symptomatic of a another ill in a building earmarked for students: the renting of spaces to outside and corporate groups.
Student leaders often struggle to reserve space in Lerner, organizing meetings and performances around outside events that occur on the upper and lower floors of the student center. This has been a particularly pressing problem for theater groups that must find alternative locations to present shows when the black box and Roone Arledge are in use. It would be understandable if Columbia rented chronically underused spaces to outside groups, but that description does not fit Lerner Hall. Administrators must reserve more of these spaces for student groups.
Columbia Catering’s use of Lerner 6 is a particularly egregious symptom of this problem. The service more often caters to outside groups that hold functions at Columbia than it does to student groups. This is folly—a building designated as a student center on a campus as spaced-crunched as ours must make full use of its facilities for students, rather than half-heartedly offer them up for use by businesses.
Admittedly, the problem of Lerner 6 is more complicated than just removing Columbia Catering’s shrimp forks and glassware. Because no single dean from any of Columbia’s schools has complete jurisdiction over the space, administrators have repeatedly failed to reach a decision as to how to use the floor. But such a bureaucratic roadblock does not excuse eight years of partial and haphazard use, nor should it continue to be a pretext for inaction. The building was erected as a hub for student life and campus activity, and the University ought to follow through on this mission. There are too many good uses for Lerner’s sixth floor for it to go to waste for another eight years.
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What's scandalous is that the overwhelming number of needs not met by the buildings existing spaces are used as a reason not to commit the space to any single one of them. Incredible.
In the end Lerner 6 will eventually be converted into a mix of bland undersized "reservable" rooms that augment Lerner's conference center capabilities, and an as of yet uncreated bureaucratic office that needs space.
Actually, article author, the Black Box is rented out through conference services *exceedingly* rarely. Problem is, putting on any show there is such a bureaucratic clusterfark that it remains empty until late into the semester, when student groups have managed to get all their paperwork together. But I'm not bitter.
I don't think they're actually saying Lerner 6 undermines the case for Manhattanville—only that it's slightly hypocritical to lobby for more space when you're making poor use of what you've got. Poetic license, methinks.
Yes, the status of Lerner is scandalous. But 12,000 square feet of unused student activities space does not undermine the university's need for 7,000,000 square feet of new space overall. Could Lerner 6 be used for hundreds of faculty apartments? Could a million square feet of engineering labs go there? Could it provide a new home for the chemistry department?
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