space

This semester, with students away from campus due to COVID-19 health and safety restrictions, many are no longer able to access Columbia’s libraries and other resources in person. In response, the University has made plans to accommodate international students through its Columbia Global Centers—traditionally international research outposts—which now provide an option for students who need a safe, communal working space outside of their homes.

In my house, there used to be buckets of Lego pieces—a tumultuous medley of bricks collected from multiple sets over the years. While my brother would build countless little cars and trucks and planes with random pieces, I would build a house. It was always the same: one bedroom, a kitchen, a big ol’ living room, and four little Lego block characters—a mom, a dad, a daughter who was always the eldest, and a son who was always the youngest. Just like my own family, just like my own house.

Just through the front door of the brownstone at 542 West 114th Street, strings of lights run along the walls of the room on the right, casting a warm glow through the windows and onto the sidewalk below. A print of a Gustav Klimt painting is tacked up above the fireplace, and the room is full of a hodge-podge of furniture. In this front room and throughout the brownstone, residents host club meetings and Friendsgivings, cook alongside each other in the kitchen, and chat over homework. Here, Columbia’s transfer student community has found a home. The residents trade in corridor-style living for a living room shared with neighbors who can relate to their path at Columbia. On a campus where almost every inch of space is claimed before they arrive, here is a house that has been set aside for them—but only for this year.

Every month, Community Board 9, a New York City advisory group representing Morningside Heights and the surrounding area, holds a public meeting on 140th Street to go over major issues and new developments in the community. But among the attendees, Columbia students are far and few between.

The concrete halls of the mechanical engineering department are decked in dim grey blocks and starved of natural light, but Mike Massimino’s office feels lively. Inside, the walls are lined with tidy rows of memorabilia: photos of Massimino’s crew in their space station hailing from his two missions, a proper portrait of him beaming in his space suit, and awards written in dramatic typefaces, adorned in heavy golden frames. There are more eclectic objects too, like a plush Snoopy that grins at me from the corner of Massimino’s desk, donning a clear astronaut’s helmet. This space holds an entire universe—spanning from intimidating-looking official letters to objects like Snoopy that seem almost like inside jokes, winking at whomever ventures into this abode.

The Columbia Makerspace, previously located on the 12th floor of the Mudd Building, received a makeover right at the beginning of this academic year. Upon stepping into its new location, Mudd Room 254 (in the Engineering Terrace), you are greeted by a mixture of grandiose machines and boxes full of yet-to-be-organized materials. All things considered, the lab and its advanced technology are impressive, especially to a fresh face.

As the largest expansion Columbia has seen in half a century, the Manhattanville campus is poised to create hundreds of square feet of space for academic inquiry, events, and student recreation. But in the face of the ever-growing opportunities to provide input on groundbreaking developments, the University Senate’s Campus Planning and Physical Development Committee—the only body charged with bringing student, faculty, and staff perspectives to the forefront of Columbia’s mission to shape its campus—has struggled to execute its mission.

In Seattle, my mother and I live in a one-bedroom apartment; the living room functioned as a common space by day and my “room” by night. My mother sold my bed right after I moved into Carman last year. Whenever I go back to Seattle over breaks, I am faced with two options: sharing the queen-sized bed with my mother (and her endearing yet loud snoring) or pulling out the mattress she had spared for me and sleeping under a few large, heavy-duty towels. I usually choose the second option.

With a growing student body and a stagnant classroom inventory, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has been increasingly compelled to look elsewhere for classroom spaces—including event spaces in Lerner, the Kraft Center, and buildings more than a mile from Morningside Campus. Without a clear solution, the growing pressure has led faculty, students, and administrators to question whether Columbia must eventually abandon its historically centralized campus for one that sprawls across Morningside Heights and, more and more, into West Harlem.

The 14th floor of Pupin Hall is a place not often visited by those who are not majoring in astronomy or astrophysics. Yet this past Friday, students and professors of all disciplines spent the late afternoon attending a space-themed event on the highest floor of the building.