Famous Ankles

One thing I rather admire about Columbia is the layout of the buildings. There are a bunch of them and they generally share a similar architecture (at least to my eye). Yet, their settings make them distinct and I never got the feeling of a grid where there was a building every X feet or so.

I did note that most of them have names, but often no description about what they are used for. Sometimes they have a descriptor carved into the beams, but I tend to doubt that they are still used for the original use. Well, I guess.

Anyway, the next building has a very simple name: Philosophy. I have little doubt as to the accuracy of that name. And for a hot, hot day; people seemed to be around it more than most of the other buildings. It sort of reminds me of the old saying “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” Well, I was out there and so were the others…what does that classify us as?

But lots of the buildings have names like the next one: Dodge. I could make all sorts of bad jokes on that, but I’ll leave that up to my readers. I can say this: nice building. Largish, too.

Near Dodge is Lewisohn Hall. Hey, it got two words in its name (unlike Dodge).

The next one was one of the “cool” buildings. I really like the looks of this one: Earl Hall. Above the door mantle are the words: “Erected for the students that religion and learning may go hand in hand and character grow with knowledge.” I rather like that sentiment. I wonder if Earl Hall has anything to do with its ancient charge (“ancient” being a few decades old)?

More modern buildings do exist (and give lie to my earlier statement about “similar architecture”). Uris Hall is pretty centrally located. And it has a bit of modern sculpture (or however they want to classify it). Compare Uris and Earl and consider which one you’d like to go to. As for me (on that hot day); probably Uris as it was more likely to have central air. And a view of Earl Hall, maybe.

Avery Hall (below) is another one that I don’t know what it does. It is impressive, though.

Finally, a better shot of a building I mentioned in my earlier post: Journalism. As I understand it, this is where the Pulitzer Prizes are given.

I think this blog is safe from getting one of those.

-H

This entry was posted on July 22, 2008 at 7:05 pm and is filed under Harlem, Manhattan, Wanderings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.