Sonia Steinmann

In honor of the archives issue, we dedicated this week’s Blinks to answering the question: What’s the most interesting story you’ve found in the Spectator archives?

The story of how I came to live in Harmony Hall my sophomore year begins with a shipwreck off the coast of Greenland in 1894. The Miranda, a ship full of arctic explorers, strikes an iceberg, and a group of survivors is left drifting southward in a schooner. It is upon this lonely schooner that the explorers first float the idea for an Arctic Club. In 1929, what is now the prestigious Explorers Club, a group of adventurers and expeditioners, moves into new headquarters on West 110th Street. The same building that now houses dozens of undergraduates was advertised as “especially fitted to make a home for men who devote their lives to exploration.” In the basement, where large lockers once stored exploring gear, laundry machines now spin with students’ dirty clothes.

Sundae Sermon must have been a spectacle before it got shut down: Renowned DJ Stormin’ Norman would gather thousands for his dance party in Morningside Park, and they would arrive with blankets, wine, and good cheer. “It brought out all the cool people of Harlem,” resident Mojisola Alawode-El, who attended many times, remembers. On Sundays, the upper part of the park would be crowded with people dancing to the soulful rhythms of Stormin’ Norman and his guest DJs. Then, in 2012, Sundae Sermon got shut down.

One recent evening, I made a mistake that many had made before me: I tried taking the 2 train to Columbia and got off at 116th Street—and Lenox Avenue. I stepped out into the fresh Harlem night and, squinting at Google Maps like the tourist that I was, traversed the avenues westward, past Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, past Frederick Douglass Boulevard, until I met the darkened terrain of Morningside Park.

On a subway ride, my gaze falls upon a poem on the wall that begins with, “All stars lead to this city.”Next to the poem, which is called “Lady Liberty,” stands an illustration of a woman with sunglasses that reflect the Statue of Liberty. To encounter a poem like this, unexpectedly, provides a momentary sense of peace for me and other commuters squeezed into a packed subway car.

Columbia College sophomore Liza Roy sometimes feels guilty complaining to Reza Shahin, her new friend in Indonesia. Tired after another week of college, Roy will lean into the phone and gripe about the work she has to do. Her friend, always interested to hear about Roy's life, will commiserate with her. But the truth is that Roy's daily complaints do not amount to Shahin's. Having fled from Afghanistan, Shahin is stuck in a Jakarta refugee camp with little to do.

A few weeks ago, I chanced upon an open-air book stand on Broadway. Among the self-help guides, crime novels, and Literature Humanities syllabus paperbacks, lay a catalogue of the world in English and Chinese. I bought it immediately.