Arts and Entertainment | Art

The top secrets of Columbia University

By Millie Felder / Senior Staff Photographer

Here are 10 secrets of Columbia University.

By Noah Sheidlower • August 27, 2021 at 1:31 AM

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Photo by Millie Felder / Senior Staff Photographer

Before Columbia relocated from its midtown campus at 49th and 50th street, between Madison and Park Avenue, its current Morningside location was home to the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum.

Photo by Millie Felder / Senior Staff Photographer

The basement of Pupin Hall housed a cyclotron, a type of particle accelerator that accelerated atoms through a vacuum to collide with one another at speeds of up to 25,000 miles per second.

Photo by Millie Felder / Senior Staff Photographer

The namesake of Pupin Hall, Michael Pupin, led research that contributed to the development of rapid X-ray photography, as well as long-distance telephony.

Photo by Beatrice Shlansky / Senior Staff Photographer

In 1908, Columbia became the possessor of the old carved mantel in front of which the poet Edgar Allen Poe wrote his famous poem “The Raven.”

Photo by Alex Kieu / Staff Photographer

The lecture hall has been featured in the first three “Spider-Man” films, Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,” both “Ghostbusters” films, Penny Marshall’s “Awakenings,” and Bill Condon’s “Kinsey.”

Photo by Millie Felder / Senior Staff Photographer

The Teachers College pool, found in the Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Building, is considered the oldest functioning pool in the U.S. and one of the oldest in the country.

Photo by Millie Felder / Senior Staff Photographer

The Battle of Harlem Heights was a Revolutionary War battle fought on the land that would later become Columbia.

Photo by Sarah-Jayne Austin / Senior Staff Photographer

On May 17, 1939, the Columbia-Princeton baseball game at Baker Field was the first sporting event ever televised.

Photo by Millie Felder / Senior Staff Photographer

One day in 1944, Carr met with Kammerer and Kerouac at the historic West End Bar (now Hex & Co.), drinking until the early hours of the morning.

Photo by Millie Felder / Senior Staff Photographer

After that day, the sundial’s location remained a mystery until it showed up 55 years later in a field in Ann Arbor.

Photo by Millie Felder / Senior Staff Photographer

Two-time Grammy award-winning rock band Vampire Weekend has a long history with Columbia.