Brownstone housing offered to undergrads

Next fall, a new housing option will be available to students.

A brownstone at 548 W. 113th St. will be included in the 2010 room selection process in March—the first time a brownstone will be included in the housing lottery. The option will be offered to undergraduate students due to the need to accommodate increasing class sizes.

“We ... are in a process of looking at admissions numbers and looking at growth-decision ramifications,” Scott Wright, vice president of student auxiliary and business services, said. “Additional first-year students need housing next year, and we have to follow that growth all the way up.”

Though brownstones along 113th and 114th streets have typically been utilized for Greek life and community housing, this will be the first offered to undergraduate students through the lottery system.

Students registered in the housing lottery choose their rooms in March and April. This process is separate from registration for Greek life housing, which takes place in February. The walk-up, four-story brownstone has two studio doubles on each floor, and each double has its own bathroom and kitchen. It will house 16 students plus a resident adviser, likely mostly juniors and a few sophomores. Students may choose to enter in groups of two or four, occupying either half the floor or the entire floor.

“I think you could compare it to the population that lives in Watt, who are mostly juniors who live in the larger studio doubles,” Joyce Jackson, executive director of housing and accommodation services, said. “It’s also comparable to Woodbridge, though 548 is newer and has a little more space.”

The brownstone used to house University graduate students, until the students’ leases were up and the brownstone was brought into the undergraduate housing program. It was not included as an option in the room selection process last year because the administration could not get the permits for the buildings approved in time. It currently houses undergraduate transfer students.

“It’s a great way to meet people—I’m close with a lot of the people in the building,” transfer student Emily Ahn, CC ’12, said, who currently lives in the brownstone. “This is definitely nicer than anything I could have gotten as a sophomore.”

And for current sophomores and juniors who may end up living at 548 W. 113th St. next year, this building may offer more privacy than some of the other housing options.

“I think for freshman year, you definitely want the big typical college dorm,” Claire Lew, CC ’12, said. “But when junior and senior year comes around, you start focusing on your work, and you want to be around the people you know well.”

Other students are looking forward to the prospect of the intimacy that a brownstone may offer.

“Since it’s more like a house, you interact with people like a family,” Samantha Seto, CC ’11, said. Citing her experience at a boarding school during her high school years, she explained that she had been “in a small house like a brownstone with about twelve girls, so you just get to know people better. It probably is better if you’re going in with friends.”

And for nearby businesses, the notion of even more undergraduate students living on the already heavily student-populated 113th Street is a welcome change.

“They haven’t bothered me for the last 40 years,” Symposium owner Chris Binioris said, referring to the students who live next door to his Greek restaurant and in the surrounding area. “Everybody is always welcomed here.”

Kim Kirschenbaum contributed reporting to this article.