Cornelliana For Half a Century, the U-Halls Shaped the Campus Experience Stories You May Like From Greek Peak’s Slopes to Helen Newman’s Lanes: Phys Ed Memories Decades Ago, Avid Photographer Captured Campus Life on Film Once Upon a Time, Canines Cavorted on the Hill—Even in Class We asked for your memories—the good, the bad, and the cinderblock—and received a deluge of dorm deeds and delights By Joe Wilensky “There are two ideal types of campus housing: a new, clean, modern dorm with air conditioning and a thick carpet, or an old ‘antique’ building with fireplaces and wooden mantles that are cozy and quaint,” observed the 1971 edition of the Cornell Desk Book, a guide published by the New Student Orientation Committee. “The University Halls are neither. The University Halls are a permanent collection of cinderblock.” The brand-new University Halls in 1954. More than a half-century later, West Campus is now home to state-of-the-art residence halls named after famed professors. Operated as a house system for upperclass students, it boasts resident faculty, modern conveniences, and well-appointed dining facilities. It’s a safe bet that most current students are unaware that for decades, this part of campus was dominated by a half-dozen utilitarian dorms. While often disdained for their many institutional faults, the U-Halls were at least tolerated by most residents. And to some—especially years later, thanks to the mists of time—they’re perhaps even beloved for their quirks. Can you spot all the 1980s icons? Cornellians recently asked alumni to share their memories of living in the U-Halls over the decades—and the dozens of submissions we received brought the narrow, bygone, dimly lit hallways of those spartan structures to brilliant life. We got brief anecdotes and detailed stories—some, it must be said, not entirely “safe for work”—as well as a few vintage photos. The dozens of submissions we received brought the narrow, bygone, dimly lit hallways of those spartan structures to brilliant life. Alumni shared vivid glimpses into a dorm culture that not only transcended the shortcomings of the buildings themselves, but continues to bind generations of Cornellians. “In 1972–73, my freshman roommate and I painted our U-Hall 3 room orange and white,” recalls Lucrezia Herman ’76. “It was known as ‘the Creamsicle’ and, from what I could see from outside, stayed that color until at least 1980.” Jack Glassman ’80, MA ’82, remembers the sound a Frisbee would make as it skimmed off the cinderblock walls, barely missing the exit signs—and a particular student “who managed to scale the outside of our building by climbing from windowsill to sill at the end of the stacked central corridors.” Among our favorite memories: one from Karl Johnson ’89, BA ’90, PhD ’10, who shared the tale of how a prankster—his own brother, David Johnson ’85, BS ’87—somehow jammed a Volkswagen bug into his room in U-Hall 3. “It was quite an attraction for a few days, but it was not convenient,” Karl writes. Moving violation: The notorious VW in situ, 1986. “To get to my bed I had to pass through the driver’s door, exit the passenger door, climb to the upper bunk, and then get on the couch that had been placed on top of my bunk to make room for the car. When, in the midst of finals, my poor roommate finally had had enough, I called David and told him the joke had run its course. With his help, we disassembled the rig and tossed the pieces off the loading dock next to the dumpster.” Among our favorite memories: one from Karl Johnson ’89, BA ’90, PhD ’10, who shared how a prankster somehow jammed a Volkswagen bug into his room in U-Hall 3. But before we take a deep dive into your memories: a history lesson. The halls were constructed at a total cost of $4.2 million and opened for the fall 1954 semester, offering nearly 1,500 beds to freshmen and some upperclassmen. A 1960s winter view, overlooking Cayuga Lake. Originally simply numbered 1 through 6, they were eventually named for the classes of 1917, 1918, 1922, 1926, and 1928, and for Elmer Sperry, inventor of the gyroscope (who studied engineering on the Hill for a year in 1879–80). It wasn’t until the late 1960s that the first Noyes Community Center—housing a dining hall, study spaces, and recreational facilities—was built in the middle of the U-Halls’ footprint. Hijinks in the Sperry Hall third-floor lounge, fall 1999. (It also effectively replaced the freshman cafeteria in U-Hall 1, affectionately known as the “Barf Bar.”) While Cornell legend has long held that the U-Halls had been intended for relatively short-term use—built as a stopgap measure to house the influx of veterans attending on the GI Bill—but remained standing long past their expiration date, this is untrue. In fact, they replaced the (truly) temporary wood barracks—erected a decade earlier to house soldiers training on campus—which strained to accommodate the postwar enrollment surge. And while the U-Halls were often lumped in with other examples of utilitarian and unlovely midcentury design, the fact is that they were criticized even before construction began. As the University’s Board of Trustees considered plans in 1953, a group of architecture students sent a list of objections, bemoaning the fact that “basic principles, regardless of style, have been ignored,” that the plan “ignores the sun, the wind, storms, views, orientation to existing buildings,” and that the designs showed “a striking similarity to brick barracks.” Even official University narratives are not kind. “The students didn’t like the new dorms,” professors Glenn Altschuler, PhD ’76, and Isaac Kramnick wrote in Cornell: A History, 1940–2015. “They called the U-Halls ‘The Stables’ and complained about the quality of the construction. “The green and yellow cinderblock walls soon cracked, and the plywood doors were vulnerable ‘to strong fists’ and ‘ambitious knocking.’” And in The Cornell Campus—a detailed chronicle of the Hill’s physical development that was published in 1968—author Kermit Parsons, MRP ’53, labors at placing the U-Halls in a benevolent context. Dancing in the much-remembered cinderblock hallways. “Necessity seems to have been the mother of desperation rather than invention,” Parsons writes, explaining that the University had just cleared its wartime deficit through careful financial planning when trustees were faced with construction choices for the project. “The six new ‘engineering style’ men’s dormitories turned out to be the sort of ‘brick boxes standing on bare plots of ground’ which President White in 1885 had so mournfully predicted would appear if Cornell lost her understanding of the educational role played by campus design.” Then-President Rhodes in a student lounge, 1979. But the U-Halls nonetheless developed an irrepressible spirit—one that was eloquently evoked by Bob Harrison ’76, then chairman of the Board of Trustees, in his remarks at the dedication of the North Campus Residential Expansion project in 2021. “Despite their indisputable ugliness, I can tell you that the residential experience inside those dorms was positively extraordinary,” he recalled. “The guys who lived in the rooms on either side of mine on the third floor of U-Hall 5—classmates I met on the very first day of Orientation Week—are still among my closest friends, 49 years later.” Students in early-’90s fashions, with the original Noyes Center in the background. It was, Harrison concluded, “a testament to the importance of the residential campus experience at Cornell—even when the architecture itself was working against it.” Read on for decades of memories—from “U-Hall Bingo” and mass snowball fights to pranks, the nearby Hot Truck, and more. And add your own in the comments! (Submissions have been edited and condensed.) Playing ‘U-Hall Bingo’ “At the beginning of our freshman year we figured out that the phone numbers for each room were sequential on each floor. On certain evenings we would call a neighboring U-Hall and try to get folks to turn their lights on. First one to get an entire row or floor lit up was the winner.” — Carlos Byrne ’90 The U-Halls by night. “U-Hall bingo! Get three in a row at 2 a.m. and be the winner.” — Sean Szymanski ’95 The opening salvo of a water fight, 1980. Fun, indoors and out “I remember a particularly pitched battle between my floor and the floor above: water being dumped down from the lounge, people running up and down the stairs. “We thought the hostilities had ceased when through an open window swung a potted plant, maybe four feet tall. One of our number leaned through the window and yelled, ‘We’re keeping your plant!’ “To which the perpetrator called down: ‘Fine, but you have to return it to Jansen’s!’” — Dan Moren ’02 “My friend was busy throwing snowballs out a third-floor window at the huge group of students having a snowball fight outside. Suddenly a Safety Division officer approached us with a stern look on his face; my friend saw his law school future fade away. “Finally, the officer said: ‘You don’t know how to throw a snowball. Let me show you,’ and began throwing with what he claimed was the proper technique at the crowd below.” — Monte Klein ’75 On any Friday afternoon in fall 1977, it was guaranteed there were at least four people with a speaker in the window blasting ‘Free Bird.’ Jill Novack Lynch ’81 “Late one night, I heard music outside. I opened the window and saw a pretty large group of people engaged in an intense snowball fight. Someone had set up stereo speakers in their window and was blasting the ‘William Tell Overture.’” — Joe Morgan ’76 “There was a great snowball fight in ’95–96—hundreds of people. I remember people bringing snow upstairs to throw from the lounges of the upper floors. Great memories.” — Brian Siana ’99 “I could see the Hot Truck and determine whether there was a long line. “Also, Primal Scream at 11 p.m. Funniest one was someone yelled out their window, ‘I want my mommy’ and someone from some other U-Hall called out ‘I want your mother, too!’” — Leslie Kalick Wolfe ’87 Shooting hoops in the early 1980s. “I may or may not have been involved with blasting horrible music out our window during midterm evenings, people yelling at us, and the RA trying to hunt us down.” — Victor Tancredi ’95 "1991–93 JAM [Just About Music] U-Hall 5 was the best! Music rooms on the main floor. Salsa nights on the first floor. The best RAs." — Becky Turner Wong ’95 Anyone remember the food fight? I believe the winter of ’73–74. I was lucky enough to be looking down from the third floor when it started. Nancy Peck Casler ’77, BS ’79 “A nighttime parade in the snow around the ‘Dust Bowl’ by students wearing pajamas, bathrobes, or parkas, and snow boots, tootling on imaginary instruments, singing loudly (in some cases drunkenly), and throwing toilet paper.” — Toby Brown Gooley ’78 Hijinks in the halls “One winter evening, a few of us decided to make our own steam room in the first-floor bathroom, because it was too long a walk to Teagle. So we covered up the shower drains and turned on the hot water. While we were enjoying our creation, our RA came in and said water was pouring into the apartment of the head RA and his wife below us!” — Neal Weinstein ’70 Lounge football, 1984. Stories You May Like From Greek Peak’s Slopes to Helen Newman’s Lanes: Phys Ed Memories Decades Ago, Avid Photographer Captured Campus Life on Film “The women on our floor had the zany idea to make a Thanksgiving turkey before we went home for the real Turkey Day with our families—but whoever was responsible for buying it got a frozen one. None of us had ever cooked a turkey before and we had no idea how long it would take to thaw, so we all took shifts running cold water over it in the utility sink in the janitor’s closet. I have more memories of thawing that turkey than of eating it!” — Suzanne Tougas Snedeker ’78 Played pitch ’n’ putt in the hallway. RA didn’t appreciate the divots in the carpet and dents in the door. Eric Bliss ’82 “Those narrow hallways—you could walk on the walls, one foot on each side, if you were tall enough.” — Ted Davids ’68 A typical room, 1964. “It was possible to lock someone into their room by forcing pennies between the door and the jamb; it pushed the bolt so firmly against the strike plate that it was extremely difficult to retract it using the small lever inside. We also occasionally moved the doors around. As the room numbers were on the doors, this could be confusing.” — Eric Siegel ’72, MEng ’74 The quality of construction was … lacking “The walls were extremely thin. One winter night, I told my roommate I was going downstairs to get a hot chocolate out of the vending machine and he asked me to get him one too. While he was hunting for some change, there was a knock on our door. It was our next-door neighbor, who said, ‘As long as you are going down, would you please get me one too?’” — Bill Fitzsimmons ’67 The 1950s design plans included scale models of the rooms. “Great hallmates and roommate, but nasty orange carpet in the hallways and cold tile floors and cinderblock walls in our rooms.” — Angela Helms Anello ’88 That’s U-Hall, not U-Haul “Email was still a new thing in 1990, so my friends and I exchanged actual mailing addresses. One friend thought I was going to live in a U-Haul truck!” — Nicole Vantuno Wagner ’94 “I remember getting the letter explaining I would be in temporary housing in U-Hall 2 and picturing a trailer!” — Dave Schowalter ’88 Newspaper delivery, 1967. “When my father was helping me move into the Baker dorms at the start of my freshman year, the directions we heard repeatedly were that they were ‘just past the U-Halls.’ We spent a long time desperately looking for the U-Haul trucks.” — Dina Wolfman Baker ’83 Location, location, location “1963–67, the U-Halls were all men and mostly freshmen. Meanwhile all the women were on North Campus in Dickson 5 & 6, Donlon, Risley, Balch, and some in sorority houses. While a lot of this was a result of ‘in loco parentis,’ we women did get the better deal.” — Anne Dalton ’67 “I remember having to lug all my laundry in the Ithaca weather to U-Hall 1 from South Baker. It was the closest laundry facility!” — Gretchen Paul Schnabel ’86 “U-Hall 4—the final year before it went co-ed! Near to the ‘Barf Bar’ for fastest omelets ever and ‘Suis’ at Louie’s truck when pulling an all-nighter.” — Terry Hartmann ’70 Kappa Alpha Theta and Sigma Alpha Epsilon host a tug-of-war for charity in fall 1984. “There was a bar run by Cornell Dining in the ground floor of Sperry (U-Hall 6) in ’78. Had my first and last Long Island iced tea. It was a short walk to upchuck outside. When the drinking age went up in New York State the bar was closed.” — Al Rocco ’82 “With a drinking age of 18 and a 30-yard walk out the front door to Noyes Pub and $1 draft beers—couldn’t beat it.” — Peter Mayers ’82 The best thing about living in U-Hall 3 was being the closest to the Hot Truck. Many a card game was played in the lounge to see who would buy the subs that night. Lois Simmons ’74 “U-Hall 4, the Lost Hallway. Stewart Avenue right outside our window. We gave our custodian such a hard job every Monday morning that we all chipped in and bought him a nice watch at the end of the year.” — Wayne Schanck ’88 “I had been coming to Ithaca on an annual basis from Philadelphia for many years, so I knew my way around pretty well. Once we dropped our luggage in our room, four of us headed down Stewart Ave. to Jim’s Place for our first beers at Cornell. I knew right away that I was going to love this place (both Cornell and Jim’s!)” — Ted Rauch ’61 U-Hall 4’s “Tarpit Lounge”—located on the loading dock roof—in 1973. Rituals, characters, and memorable moments “Pinball at Noyes. Co-ed by floor. Ultimate Frisbee in the Dust Bowl. The food truck for after-hour munchies.” — Josh Kiem ’78 “I remember staring out of my window waving goodbye to my family who dropped me off with a combination of excitement and fear. “The cinderblock walls may have been a sign of strong construction, but they looked cold and institutional. Still, I had many great experiences with the guys on my floor and in other U-Halls. My, how the room and board have changed since then!” — Andrew Goldstein ’69 “Sperry rocked! I loved it there my freshman year. I recall the collective primal scream rituals at midnight during finals week.” — Randall Nixon ’78 Future spouses Margo Sue Randall Bittner ’80 and Jim Bittner ’80 in front of U-Hall 1—where they met—in 1977. “Best memories are the Hot Truck and having 200 fellow hallmates gathered to watch ‘SNL’ every Saturday night on the one working TV in the basement!” — Patrick Bell Sr. ’82 Then there was the guy who periodically sat on the laundry room windowsill while he washed all of his clothes. Carl Anderson ’68 “I lived in U-Hall 5 as a freshman. When my daughter matriculated 33 years later, she was in Keeton Hall—located on the same site. When we walked out the door to the parking area, it was the exact same view that had greeted me all those years ago.” — Sandra Cronauer Mitra ’78 Noyes Community Center, 1973. “It seems impossible that they only opened in 1954, as they had the atmosphere of decaying custodial institutions even by 1967. Also amazed they lasted until 2004! Other recollections: the lingering smell of stale beer in the social lounges. Watching ‘Star Trek’ in the first-floor social room. The short walk to the Chapter House and the Hot Truck. Card games when we should have been cramming.” — Scott Shiffner ’71 “I remember some of the guys setting up a small radio station in the third-floor lounge.” — Rudy Mitchell ’71 “I had never seen a bagel until the first Sunday morning coffee hour in the basement lounge. I asked someone about the funny-looking doughnuts, and everyone there from my corridor, mostly guys from New York, found it hilarious.” — Paul Rohan ’68 During her 10th Reunion, Nicole Vantuno Wagner ’94 points to her former room—in the process of demolition. “I was rehearsing a play a week before the end of the semester. One of the actors said, ‘My parents got me Big Red Bucks that I never used. They expire at the end of the semester. Anyone want lunch?’ We all got free vending machine lunch and he was our hero.” — Joseph Beck ’99 “Perfect place to spend the year transitioning from high school to college.” — Richard Schrade Jr. ’82 Top: Lounging al fresco in 1979. Student candids provided by alumni (special thanks to Margo Sue Randall Bittner ’80; Scott Jackson ’76; Karl Johnson ’89, BA ’90, PhD ’10; Dan Moren ’02; Gretchen Paul Schnabel ’86; Gligor Tashkovich '87, MBA ’91; and Nicole Vantuno Wagner ’94). All other images from Rare and Manuscript Collections. Published August 8, 2024 What do you remember about the U-Halls? Comments Bill Fitzsimmons, Class of 1967 8 Aug, 2024 “Barf Bar Fred,” the cook in the Barf Bar, was reputed to be the only guy able to cook a 3 minute egg in one minute. Reply Pete Salinger, Class of 1966 18 Aug, 2024 I remember that Barf Bar Fred had the “skill” of sending egg shells into the back wall while still looking forward. The egg shells then fell into a large waste basket! Reply Betty Eng, Class of 1992 11 Aug, 2024 In UHall 4, the 3rd and 4th floors were a program house called the Scholarly Living Unit. So the 2 floors had a lot of people who knew each other. We woke up to find all the furniture (square sofa sectionals) in our tv room were gone. One person was sitting on the floor watching TV. We eventually found all the furniture in the 3rd floor tv lounge where they had no floor space and you had to climb on the sectionals to sit in a sofa with a back. Reply Craig Phelps, Class of 1988 18 Aug, 2024 In the mid ’80s they were called the Study Floors. The problem was that not many people signed up for them (just us nerds). As a result, there was extra space, and the Administration filled it with people who signed up for housing late (or not at all.) This led to an interesting mix of overly-serious students and “screw-ups” who were wilder than the average freshmen. It led to a lot of conflicts, but I also think we ended up being good influences on each other. They helped us learn how to loosen up, and we helped them get organized. Reply Len Libenson, Class of 1963 12 Aug, 2024 Surprised to see no memories about the traditional “Panty Raids”. Although stupid, and considered sexist under today’s standards, there was no harm done… but lots of laughs and fun for those who participated. In the Fall of 1959, at midnight, the sound of a bugle playing “Call to the Races” coming from room 1401 woke many freshmen, calling them to assemble in the middle of the six u-Halls to go on the traditional panty raid. Hundreds came out of their rooms and successfully completed their mission… HOWEVER, the fool who blew the bugle call was reprimanded and nearly expelled the next morning. Len Libenson ’63 (former resident… room 1401) Reply Henry L Goldstein, Class of 1963 19 Aug, 2024 Hey Lenny – I was in 4414 my first year . Big group from AB DAVIS at Cornell that year. You and I also went to Camp Ramaquois together. Retired Connecticut lawyer, now living in Northern Virginia > All well and enjoying High School age grandsons here, Hope you and yours are well HENRY L GOLDSTEIN . Reply Len Libenson, Class of 1963 19 Aug, 2024 Hey there Henry. Great to hear from you after so many years. Lots of memories from Traphagen School, AB Davis HS, Camp Ramaquois. Retired engineer living in Central NJ for 55 years. Love it here…. near the shore, Princeton, and not far from NYC and Philly. 2 kids, 4 grandkids, and recently 2 Great-Grandkids!! Going to AB Davis class luncheon next month. Life is great! I no longer play the bugle….. HA HA Reply Bruce Mainzer, Class of 1974 22 Aug, 2024 Yep. I remember one my freshman year (I think it was the spring of 1971), when the entire male population of all male UHalls marched over to the female dorms to the north. It was massive and started as a spontaneous event. Reply Randall Nixon, Class of 1978 12 Aug, 2024 U-Hall 5 Alumnus here. In my freshman year, I recall that one of my floormates brought his Harley-Davidson all the way up the steps — and insisted on parking it in the middle of the hallway, requiring us to climb over in order to get to the bathroom. And who can forget primal screaming, promptly at midnight every night during finals? My girlfriend, who had just finished her finals at Harvard, was visiting me. She said, “gee, I wish I had gone here”. Finally, I took Professor Hans Bethe’s class on physics and the atomic age in m senior year. 38 years later, my daughter Class of ’15, lived in Hans Bethe House. Reply Ed Coburn, Class of 1984 12 Aug, 2024 U-Haul 3 was a particularly lively place when I was there freshman year. Great placement next to Noyes and looking right out on the Hot Truck was especially advantageous on cold nights so we could go when the line was short. I wasn’t in the lost corridor but my friends were so I spent a lot of time there. We caused a little trouble — playing bowling or hockey in the hallway. And of course the fall night in 1980 when we had a food fight that precipated the carpet having to be replaced and a few stern conversations from the RAs and ResLife. Great Reply Dustin Moskowitz, Class of 1991 12 Aug, 2024 I moved into U-Hall 5 in August 1987 as a freshman, but it was only temporary as that was the year when the dorms were being renovated. Within two months, we had everything packed back up, left in boxes over Fall Break. When we returned, Facilities had moved us to U-Hall 4 – no more cinder block walls, they were behind actual drywall. We were able to choose our room configurations and layouts ahead of time, and instead of old metal bunks and aged wood desks, we got nice wooden bunks, desk chairs you could tip back without tipping over, armoires instead of closets, and new carpeting. Sadly though, each section of the floor gained a study room, but at the expense of whoever was living in that spot in U-Hall 5, so we lost our neighbors just opposite us. Everything about the dorm had been upgraded, but we lost the ability to see who could jump up in the hallway, extend their arms and legs to the old blocks, and see how far they could hop without touching the floor. Reply Jonah Klein, Class of 1990 12 Aug, 2024 Two engineering students on my hall put a full-size arcade game in their room on the first floor of U-hall 1 and managed to wire it into the light fixture in the hallway so it wouldn’t trip the circuit breaker in their room. Reply Sharon Palatnik Simoncini, Class of 1978 12 Aug, 2024 When my parents drove me up at the start of freshman year, my father took one look at the cinder block walls and said ‘I’m spending so much money for you to live in THIS?!’ But U-Hall 1 was awesome! Reply craig esposito, Class of 1974 18 Aug, 2024 Sharon- I was class of 1917 hall too, room 1111! Who knew? When I returned for one of my Reunions, my old room had become a women’s rest room! Very ironic, since while I lived there, not a single woman ever entered that room.. I also remember the time I dropped a brochure behind my bed, and finally found it in the neighboring room. It had slipped underneath the presumably solid wall. I was also surprised no one mentioned the improvised slingshots set up in UHall 6(?) windows using rubber tubing/bands and plastic bowls that shot water balloons at neighboring U-Halls. Reply Harlan Ettinger, Class of 1973 6 Sep, 2024 Craig, in 1970/1971 I lived in the room above the front entrance of UH-1, Class of ’17 Hall. It was quite an experience. Nightly hall hockey on our floor with tennis balls or rolled up socks and a group of guys who pulled all-nighters in the common room most week nights then slept through their morning classes. I still cringe at the memory of them drinking Maxwell House Instant Coffee made with hot water from the bathroom sinks. One bitter cold winter night someone got the brilliant idea to make snow in the bathroom by getting it all steamed up then throwing open the windows. It rained instead. But the best UH-1 water stories involve big garbage cans of water being propped against the door of the service elevator and sent to the upper floors to spill out into the hall and cascade down the elevator shaft. There was so much water play on my floor that the carpets had to be torn up at the end of the year and no one got their room deposits back. Reply Cindy Fuller, Class of 1978 12 Aug, 2024 I lived in South Baker freshman year, but did laundry in U Hall 1. I remember someone “borrowed” an ironing board out of the laundry room to use as a toboggan during the first snowfall. The dryers had ratings on them so you could save your quarters: “0° Kelvin!” “Guaranteed to melt elastic.” Reply Donald Stalknecht, Class of 1978 13 Aug, 2024 Do the dorms still have landlines? As a freshman, I was in U-Hall 4, and I loved my phone number, 256-1972. 16 squared (okay, I have a bit of number fetish) followed by the year I matriculated. It all seemed auspicious, somehow. I made a number of friends from the dorm, even sharing an apartment with one of them years later in Cayuga Heights, but among the more memorable experiences of living there were the shouting matches between the dorms, our chant being “U-HALL 5 SUCKS !!!”, either initiating or in response to a like greeting from our neighbor. Reply Whit Watson, Class of 1993 13 Aug, 2024 This article prompted a text chain among my lifelong friends from the 4th floor of Sperry U-Hall 6. All of us are class of ’93, which means that this week is the 35th anniversary of our arrival on campus (Fall ’89). My best friends from Cornell are my floormates from that year and co-workers at WVBR. We are now organizing a Sperry 4th floor reunion. Thank you for this. Reply Sean Hill, Class of 1990 14 Aug, 2024 I moved into Sperry Hall fall of 1986, the parking was very tight & as many vehicles maneuvered to unload, my dad backed a U-Haul trailer (we over packed) up to my U Hall living space & people were impressed. Later, when my extended family came to visit for Fall Break, my aunt walked into my drab dorm room of cinderblocks & commented, “all that money for this?” We had so many good times in Sperry Hall. My roommate commandeered a roadside flashing light from the Massachusetts Highway Dept on his way back after break. He set it up in our window for all of West campus & up the hill from Sperry to see. It was late that night when campus police came knocking w/ a flashlight held up to his right ear like a weapon, intent on getting that light & my roommate in the process. My roommate immediately said “it was from Massachusetts not NY” thinking that would be enough to clear him from immediate “prosecution”. It worked. Campus police left & the light was immediately removed. I do not know if it was ever returned to Massachusetts. Reply Joseph Black, Class of 1984 15 Aug, 2024 When I first arrived at Cornell, the bus from the airport dropped me off behind Noyes, next to the dumpsters (not the best first impression). I had to cross the “dust bowl” to get to Sperry (another bad impression). Sperry was the first dorm to go coed on each floor, door by door. I had great dorm mates! That walk up Lib slope in the winter was horrendous, but the memories are priceless! Reply Michael Kaufman, Class of 1979 16 Aug, 2024 Sperry sucked! Best dorm ever!. Home of the yellow submarine basement corridor and the space academy. I lived one year over the dust bowl entrance portico, and set up a few chairs for “entertainment “ while I smoked my cigars (really!). Coed by room made life more interesting, but had weird ramifications—such as alternate floor bathrooms. The ladies always put flower pots in the urinals. Finally, in 78, the denizens of Sperry organized the dust bowl “riot” and march on President Rhodes house, demanding a mid semester vacation. We rioted in the D- Bowl, screaming we were mad as hell and weren’t going to take it anymore, marched up to north Campus, then got stopped by the police at Rhodes house. Well we got the mid semester break on the calendar the next year. Student activists at their best Reply Emily Gross Eider, Class of 1981 16 Aug, 2024 I remember that “riot” fondly, but pretty sure that would have been the fall of 1977 since that is when I lived in U- Hall 5. Reply Big Red, Class of 1981 18 Aug, 2024 Hi Emily, Oct 1977 — “We will stay and freeze our asses til Frank Rhodes cancels classes!” Not bad for an on the spot chant on a cold fall night. Reply David Freed, Class of 1975 16 Aug, 2024 I’ll always remember 6330 Sperry Hall, my first address away from home and the first coed dorm at Cornell. I was especially excited to be accepted there because I attended an all-boys private high school. Three vivid memories tower above all others: Pandemonium. This coed dorm was a novelty hence continuously populated by students, reporters, and diverse visitors. Quiet and privacy were the absolute exceptions rather than the rules. Functionality. University Halls were basic housing with almost no amenities. Built from cinder blocks, they were so cold in winter that the best care package a parent could send was an electric blanket to hang inside the exterior wall of one’s room. Inexperience. We were required to attend several informational sessions about living with the opposite sex as a condition of acceptance to this experimental dorm. I clearly recall being amazed by the bell curve of sophistication as concerns subjects like family planning, which some students slept through while others took careful notes. The Beatles said it best: “I was alone I took a ride, I didn’t know what I would find there.” What a ride! Reply Sue Thompson, Class of 1980 17 Aug, 2024 My roommate and I used to store ice cream sandwiches taken from the cafeteria on our outside windowsill in U Hall 5 since they stayed frozen there better than in our dorm fridge, prompting many a barrage of snowballs from people trying to knock them down and steal them. Good times in that dorm. Reply michael rosepiler, Class of 1975 18 Aug, 2024 As a freshman in 1971 they already looked worn, Sterile and unattractive. Cheap building materials inside and out. Parents who would visit me, my roommate and the fellows next door to us during the school year wondered what they were paying for. Good question, since the freshman class sizes ranged from a couple hundred and higher. Good question… Did not and would not send my children to Cornell. Reply Kim Fisher, Class of 2006 18 Aug, 2024 I lived in Class of ’18 my sophomore year along with about 15 of my friends who all blocked rooms together. It was a really fun time! One night we were having a girls’ night and our guy friends managed to trap/lock us in the room we were in. It took a couple of hours before they would let us out! Playing beer pong someone’s room, hanging out in the lounge, the nice view from my window…good memories. Reply Steven Ludsin, Class of 1970 18 Aug, 2024 I remember my father helping me unload my belongings at the loading dock for U.H. 5. It was the transition to a new life that I will never forget. It was sobering to see those cinder block walls. I realized I didn’t like the atmosphere so I created a life on campus to minimize my time in the room. I was busy calling as many people as possible to find my way. There was a bulletin board for messages next to the hallway phone. One side said Everyone and the other side said Steve Ludsin. Reply Eric Key 18 Aug, 2024 I lived in 4 73-74 and the guys next door to us had a rooster that we tried to teach to fly in the hallway. It was a refugee from some bio lab experiment involving hormone implants and Frank and Dean were too kind hearted to leave it to its fate.it eventually went to live with Frank’s mom in Binghamton. Happy ending! Reply Allen Liou, Class of 2002 18 Aug, 2024 Back in 1998, I lived in Sperry and bought 2 1000W halogen-powered lights, primarily b/c the room was pretty dimly lit. Room was situated facing the slope so whenever we had friends coming from north campus and elsewhere, we’d point the lights at the window with curtains open. Served us well as the west campus beacon / light tower esp during the sad winters. Reply Marc A. Gerber, Class of 1962 18 Aug, 2024 With the exception of Libe Slope, I enjoyed every moment in U-Hall 5. The guys, only guys, on the North wing of my floor were great. I don’t remember which floor and I don’t remember anybody grousing about the building design or anything else. When I attended a reunion, I stayed in a tiny room in Alice Cook and yearned for my old double in UH 5. Being from the NYC suburbs I had never met anyone like my roommate from rural Indiana. What a great guy. We had so many laughs. I remain a fan of the University Halls dorms. Reply George Ubogy, Class of 1958 18 Aug, 2024 I arrived at “Freshman Dorm” 6 in the fall of 1954, part of the first entering class. Cinder block construction on the outside walls, cinder blocks inside. There was no grass anywhere so the connecting sidewalks were planks of wood, surrounded by mud when it rained, which was often. There was a guy on a motorcycle with a noisy engine riding the planks every evening and gunning his engine repeatedly, in case anyone didn’t realize he was there. There was no residential faculty presence; Cornell was represented by a single sophomore in each building who probably got free rent, in exchange for calling the Campus Patrol or an ambulance every now and then. What’s the opposite of “coddled”? Reply alan r newhouse, Class of 1959 18 Aug, 2024 better the next fall floor 1 had lightweight [150] crew coach as our dorm counselor. great group many of us from floor 1 were at our 65th reunion this spring Reply Leslie Taylor, Class of 1958 22 Aug, 2024 I arrived the same time, the fall of 54. I remember well the mud and planks. As I recall, here were just 5 1/5 buildings. One was still under construction. The mud was everywhere. One became an expert on mud: After a while you cold tell by eye which bit of mud would support you and which bit you would sink into. Reply Jon Anderson, Class of 1971 18 Aug, 2024 I lived freshman year in U hall 5. In the “Wine Cellar” … the basement floor that had 6 or 7 rooms. Two guys per room. AND I was in the corner room with Ron Hayhurst. The heat from the radiators was poor at the end of the line and with two exterior walls that corner room was COLD in a cold winter (1967-8). I bet it was well below 60 some nights/mornings. Another tidbit … we were told that all 12 or 14 of us were the only freshman who had requested a non-smoking roommate. Reply Brian Gray, Class of 1971 18 Aug, 2024 Hi, Jon. I was in the wine cellar also but you will remember my roommate was nicknamed animal man for good reason. In later years Ron Hayhurst was my room mate also. Reply Jon Anderson, Class of 1971 22 Aug, 2024 Hey Brian … that was Ken Green, right? I hope all goes well with you. I’m retired now but still in Eugene, Oregon. Jon Reply Peter Fanelli, Class of 1975 18 Aug, 2024 We had a vote to give U Hall #3 a real name. I remember two submissions: Sodom and Gomorrah Living Complex and Sam Rosent Hall. Sam Rosenthal was a well liked counselor. We were unsuccessful. We were successful in getting a dorm exchange with the first dorm at the entrance to north campus. One of the girls kept a list of guys who were able to climb through her window there. Reply Jim Grunzweig, Class of 1959 18 Aug, 2024 Fall 1955. Moved into U Hall. Best fun ever. Came down the hill all winter via a tray. Made great friends. Somehow even passed all my courses. Great memories. Reply Judy Kalisker 18 Aug, 2024 We would all hang out in the lounge and leave our doors to our rooms open. It was like living in an apartment with 50 other people. Reply Larry Kerecman, Class of 1969 18 Aug, 2024 My first experience with Dorm 4 was as a sub-frosh, visiting Cornell for a weekend to experience campus life in person. I slept in a cot between the two twin beds. That weekend sold me on applying to Cornell. Imagine my surprise to be assigned to live in that same dorm my freshman year. My roommate and I were both Larry K so I became Larry 1 (since my last name came first alphabetically) and he became Larry 2. Since the drinking age in NY was eighteen in 1965 we had a number of dorm mates who enjoyed walking down Stewart Avenue to the Chapter House to get roaring drunk. Those of us in engineering had reams of computer printouts from debugging code that we no longer needed. We knew our one neighbor would not be back until after last call at 2 AM. With the residents on the other side of the hall as willing co-conspirators (all of whom were back in their rooms by 1 AM) Larry and I covered over the entire hallway wall on that side with computer paper for about five doors from the end and took out the light bulbs in the corridor. Our inebriated friend lived in the third room from the end and when he came back he could not find his door. Lots of yelling ensued and he immediately suspected the two Larrys, banging on our door for many minutes before finally ripping down enough computer paper to find his room. In the spring an event that I recall being called “Murderball” was held in the open space between the dorms. The area was flooded with water, which quickly turned into a giant mud pit as teams from the dorms pushed a 6-foot bladder around the field to try to score points. It was a rather disorganized sport as mud sliding and mud fights tended to distract from the game formalities. Later that spring, Stewart and Bennett set up a construction trailer to begin work on the new Noyes Community Center in that same field. Somehow I managed to get the phone number of the trailer, which had a very loud external bell on the phone line. From the hallway telephone I called the number at the top of each hour that evening to ring out the time. The humor in that quickly got lost on my dorm neighbors and I recall being physically restrained when I went to ring 10 PM. The statute of limitations has passed by now, right? One Saturday morning I noticed that the contractor had left a hose running and a large puddle was forming. Rather than figure out how to turn it off I diverted the water to a nearby recently back-filled trench that went down the hill. About eight hours later the loose dirt in the trench turned into a rather large mud slide that mostly blocked Stewart Avenue. As we got into final exams in the spring of ’66 construction on the new building was underway. It was noisy and disruptive to studying in the dorm rooms so a few of us started a protest at Day Hall. It was successful in getting construction noise throttled down during the last days of finals. I was rather shocked that my activism was on my student record when my parents came to campus to review my scholarship. Reply Joel Tellinghuisen, Class of 1965 18 Aug, 2024 UH 6, 61-62. Ah, so many memories, mostly pleasant! One that stands out: Some clowns got advance word of a coming fire drill, and when the moment arrived, a string of tied-together bed sheets came out a 3rd- or 4th-floor window. At least one resident escaped the hypothetical flames that way. Don’t know the final outcome of that stunt though … Reply Bob Hoyler, Class of 1962 18 Aug, 2024 I really enjoyed the article about the University Halls dorms, having lived there when they were still relatively new in the 1958-59 year. I remember returning to the 2nd floor of Dorm 4 about 5 pm one day in Fall 1958 to be greeted by a very pleasant appetizing aroma. Several guys were standing in the hall outside one of the rooms. Soon Jim the RA showed up and pounded on the door. “Do you have a hot plate in there?” “No.” “Well, you know they are not allowed and you clearly have one in there.” “No, no hot plate in here.” “Open up, or I am coming in with my pass key.” I don’t remember how the door finally got opened, but sure enough there was no hot plate in there. Only a hamburger cooking on the bottom of the student’s laundry iron. Don’t remember what happened to the hamburger or the iron. No, the student was not expelled. Another time, during exam week (now 1959) one of the rooms (not mine!) got filled with crumbled up NY Times newspaper sheets that someone had been saving all year. Totally filled from floor to ceiling, windows to door, stuffed in tight. Total surprise when the resident of that room came back from his final to try to get back into his room. In retrospect, however, it was actually a major fire hazard. The long hallways were also a favorite spot for the engineering students who had made heavy metal gears in machine shop class to roll them from one end to the other. What a noise as the metal gear teeth rolled the whole way along the floor from one end to the other! I still have the gear that I made in that class (and probably rolled down the hallway at least once). Reply Jim Putnam, Class of 1985 18 Aug, 2024 I moved into the Wine cellar in U-Hall 3 in 1982 or “Zoo-Halls as nicknamed then. The corridor consisted of only 6 rooms. They were occupied alternatingly by the opposite sex, 2 men in one room, 2 women in the next. We were supposed to alternate the use of our bathroom with the 1st floor bathroom by sex by semester. However, by October the basement bathroom was co-ed. After that, we started seeing more guys from the first floor use our basement bathroom, I wonder why?? And during the conversations with women doing their daily absolutions, I learned more then than in High School sex ed. Also, U-Hall 3’s basement had the only TV lounge for the dorm. On Mondays it was packed for MASH episodes and Thursday nights for Hill Street Blues. It was surprising how quiet a group of 20+ students would be after a serious episode of either show concluded…Let’s be careful out there. Reply Kenneth Fields, Class of 1967 18 Aug, 2024 The Greatest Deli Run Ever – In the fall of 1963 a resident of U-Hall 5 (who shall remain nameless) was homesick for a real New York City delicatessen style sandwich. (There was a deli in downtown Ithaca but that was hard for new freshman to get to and it didn’t compare to the real NYC thing.) He discovered others felt the same way and after contacting either the Stage Deli or Katz’s in Manhattan, I don’t remember which, he arranged for dozens of real deli sandwiches to be flown to Ithaca and distributed to the waiting U-Hall dorm residents who had ordered them. The story ended up big time in the NYC papers Reply David Gutman, Class of 1967 18 Aug, 2024 I arrived at 1224 University Halls in the fall of ’63, and not yet 18 years old. After meeting the guys on the floor, my first memory is that most of them were frequent visitors to The Chapter House. Fortunately, a nice hotelie named Frank loaned me his license so I could join them for my first bar experience. I don’t recall that we came to Cornell with expectations of better accommodations, but after visiting one of the lucky freshmen in Baker Hall, I realized we got the short end of the stick. Reply Bob Reich, Class of 1975 18 Aug, 2024 Two memories from UH4: Some guys figured out how to make flame throwers out of empty Pringles cans and some lighter fluid. They would open their window and shoot them across the way towards (I think) UH3, and UH3 shot back. The flames didn’t make it all the way across but it was still pretty impressive to see at night. I was on the 3rd floor and one of the guys across the hall (Ron Mass) was a Yankee ballboy. For a while he and I would toss grounders to each other trying to spin them to induce errors. This went on (occasionally) for weeks until some guys from the 2nd floor came up – pretty livid – and told us we’d been driving them crazy. So, not only thin walls but non-sound-proofed floor/ceilings in those dorms. Reply Stuart Miniman, Class of 1995 18 Aug, 2024 I worked at the Hot Truck and there was one customer that would yell his order from the U-Hall window. Reply Marguerite Syvertson, Class of 1986 18 Aug, 2024 I moved down to U-Hall 4 from Balch after a couple weeks with roommates with whom I didn’t mesh (to say the least, yikes). Had a great roommate (Julia) on the 4th floor, and made lifelong friends with the other people on our floor. Remember a sudden storm that came through that slammed every single U-Hall window shut simultaneously. Pretty much the perfect freshman experience. (South Baker for sophomore year – also perfection.) Reply Lucrezia Herman, Class of 1976 18 Aug, 2024 I note that the orange and green swirly (and plasticky) curtains in Karl Johnson’s VW photo are the same ones that appeared in our dorm in Fall 1972 (hence our choice of paint color). And, my room also suffered the same fate that Bob Holyer’s had several years earlier – being completely filled with crumpled newspaper – only it was during the first couple of weeks of classes, so I can’t imagine where the culprits (guys from the Wine Cellar) found all that paper! (I’ll try to post some photos on your FB page https://www.facebook.com/cornellalumniassociation) Reply Allan L. Schwartz, Class of 1962 18 Aug, 2024 4307 University Halls= Building #4, 3rd Floor, Room 07, Freshman roommates (by chance) Al Schwartz, Monroe HS in Rochester NY, and Dan Tarsy, Midwood HS in Brooklyn NY, both Class of 1958. Also, roommates in Collegetown Sophomore and Senior years (both by choice), and treasured friends ever since. …. It all began in that concrete cubicle at the foot of the Libe Hill slope , now more than 65+ years ago👍👍‼️ Reply Peter Reed, Class of 1977 20 Aug, 2024 It is always sad to see part of one’s past demolished! That being said, they were pretty utilitarian, and didn’t make me feel like I was at a distinguished university. I went to the dining hall of the UHalls until I discovered Willard Straight, and then never returned to the UHall dining. It was depressing. In fact, I would say I spent as little time at the UHalls as possible. One night I came home late and discovered that the kids that stayed in the dorm had smashed all the furniture in the lounge, and then put it back together to make it look normal. Sperry (UHall 6) was the cool dorm since it was coed, and I had a good friend there so I did spend some time at his room. But when I return to campus a part of me will be gone forever. Reply Logan M. Cheek, Class of 1960 20 Aug, 2024 UH 4424 here, in the 1956-1957 freshman year. A great place to fine tune your entrepreneurial and creative skills: 1. In the wind down to Christmas break, the first big snowstorm hit. Thus came to be a newfound passion for what came to be called streaking. The call would go out that Bill or Bob or Joe would be running buck naked around the inner quad for $20, or $50 or $100. (To get the context of the times, a $20 check cashed at the campus store was your spending money for the week, and $100 was 10% of your entire year’s tuition.) The going rate hit $100 when Paul Eisenberg did his thing. Shoeless no less. And to raucous cheering by all of us from the windows. It gave a whole new meaning to “working your way through college”. By the following morning, University proctor Lowell George and identified the streakers. By the following year I recall none had returned to the Hill above Cayuga’s waters. 2. Then was the “Variation on a theme of Rudolph” sung by an a classmate returning in the wee hours of his night at Jim’s. ‘Rudolph the red assed reindeer Had a very shiny butt And if you ever saw it You would even say it glowed All of the other reindeer Even laughed and called him names They wouldn’t let poor Rudolph Join in any reindeer games. Then one foggy Christmas ever Santa came to say Rudolph with your butt so bright Won’t you be my back up light?” Reply Bill Grant, Class of 1977 21 Aug, 2024 Thoroughly loved these strolls down memory lane. U Hall 2 resident Streaking. Looked out my window and saw a sorority that were butt naked and dancing on the wall. This clearly did not happen in my Catholic boys high school. Furniture Inventory. A fellow Hotelie, John Murphy ‘77(?) and I stole a party couch from the lobby of a dorm at Ithaca College, threw it on top of his Volvo sedan, and delivered it to Mark’s party HQ room in UHall 5(?) Mark was left to explain to his RA that the couch belonged in his room. Had a blast in the Uhalls! Reply Deny Lorentz, Class of 1980 21 Aug, 2024 I lived in U-Hall 5 in 1976-77. I had a corner room with two rows of heating panels – it was sooo hot we had to keep the window open all winter. And walking up Libe slope was a challenge. We played Killer Frisbee down the hall. After a bit of time, all the hall lights got knocked out and we had to walk down the hall in the dark for weeks. One very memorable event was when the fire water pipe broke on the 4th floor (end of the hall near the window). Hundreds of gallons of water per minute shot out. And it was filthy. the 4th floor was under a foot of water. And it flowed down – I was on the first floor and had several inches on the floor. It smelled like a fetid swamp for days afterward and clean up was nasty. But overall, it was a pretty good time. Lots of good folks and good times. I roomed with Karl Ludwig for the next 3 years and we’ve stayed good friends ever since – we and our spouses vacation together frequently even now. Reply Med Colket, Class of 1970 21 Aug, 2024 I have many memories of my freshman life in the UHalls, including playing football in the narrow hallways, the noise, the barfing and other fun sounds from the bathrooms, and others, but two memories stand out: (1) As those that lived in the UHalls know, there were landlines located in each of the hallways, serving phone access for half of the floor. We had a prankster (Howie….) across from my room. Among other things, he would occasionally fill up a small office trash container with water (1-2 quarts) and lean it against an unsuspecting person’s door. Then he would knock on someone’s door and claim that there was a phone call for them, but once they opened the door the container would fall over spilling the water out onto the floor. Over the entire year, he pulled this stunt on nearly everyone on the hallway, with no prejudices, for, or against. At year end as finals were approaching, the offended residents of the floor took their revenge. First, we confirmed he was in his room studying. Then, we borrowed a large trash container from the bathroom and filled it with water from the shower. The container could not be lifted easily (~20 gallons of water), so we rolled and twisted it on the bottom as we brought it to his door. We carefully and very quietly leaned the container against his door at a steep angle to make sure that once the door cracked open the water would start moving over the top, and it would be hard to stop the momentum of the water (we had plenty of engineers judging this arrangement). Then we all (nearly the entire floor residents) stood at the center portion of the hallway, and someone rang the community phone. No one answered it. But it kept ringing. Suddenly, Howie yelled ‘someone get the phone’. No one did, but we began to chuckle with anticipation. Howie yelled again and again, with no response, as we all watched from the corner hallway. Finally, we could hear him swearing and getting up and walking to the door before he madly flung it open. We heard a huge splashing sound and we all disappeared for several hours. We got a little grief from the floor just below, but Howie never complained….. (2) The early spring of 1967 was the time that Cornell first won the NCAA championship in ice hockey. A big contributor to this achievement is undoubtedly Ken Dryden who was arguably one of the greatest goalies of all time or GGOAT! Of course there were many other fantastic skaters on the team. On our floor, we had a guitar player with amps and huge speakers in his room. The finals of the NCAA championships were on and everyone was glued to a TV or radio. As the last game was ending and Cornell was in the lead, our UHall friend at the end of the hallway pointed his speakers out the window into the courtyard, turned them up and started yelling the classic line: ‘We’re number one, we’re number one.’ Soon everyone in the halls was chanting along. This kept on for a little while, before he turned the speakers off, and the chanting continued. The energy was incredible, all coming from the freshman living in the UHalls. Quite an experience…. Regardless of these memorable events, I did very strongly recommend to my brother two years later to avoid the UHall experience and the bare cinderblock walls. Reply George Weiner, Class of 1964 22 Aug, 2024 Our RA, Ken “The One Minute Manager” Blanchard busted some of us for playing Hearts in UH 2. In 1960, any kind of gambling was frowned upon. I recall having to pay a visit to Proctor George, or maybe that was for some other transgression. Reply Larry Rubenstein, Class of 1966 22 Aug, 2024 I arrived in U-Hall 1, right above the barf bar, in September of 1962 at the age of 16. Not ready to be a serious student. U Hall life was not helpful – the long halls meant that if you didn’t feel like studying there were enough people that you got to know in the communal bathroom that you could always find someone to waste time with. Everybody was best friends with their roommates for the fall semester and then couldn’t stand them by the time spring term came around. My roommate was a full 2 years older than me and I never spoke to him after freshman year. I don’t think I even saw him…may have busted out. I don’t remember ever thinking that the accommodations were not acceptable. Reply Ken Margolies, Class of 1971 22 Aug, 2024 Sperry Hall 4th floor 1967-68 was like the movie Animal House. Too noisy to study but fun at times. Lots of pot smoking and loud music. Had first beer at Jim’s – urinated off the bridge on the way back to dorm. Reply Bailey Tong, Class of 1980 27 Aug, 2024 U-Hall 4 was an introduction to fellow freshman, the sounds of “Bread” and “Pink Floyd”, new friends like Drew from California and a fellow from Africa who was wearing his parka on the first day of class. Our dorm “monitor” was Alfred Cornell who knew when and how to keep us in line 🙂 Libe Slope built up our legs so that trekking and hiking became something we’d enjoy – especially during study week when we could find an empty room or auditorium to be away from it all. We ventured up North where I met my uptown girl, Craig the ornithology major, Freddy the QB and listened to Professor Sagan give a talk. The dogs also were great and led to our adoption of 2 other dogs later in life – FYI, Mr Weill kept that practice on his corporate campus in Armonk, NY. Thanks for the memories. Reply Hank Zucker, Class of 1972 30 Aug, 2024 I had a ground-floor room in U-Hall 3. This enabled a sophomore woman I was dating to climb in the window after freshman women’s curfew was in effect. Another memory is playing Risk in Noyes until 3, sometimes 4 in the morning, taking a break to visit the food truck. After a while I came one of the privileged few who could wait inside the truck out of the rain. Reply Bob Herwick, Class of 1964 3 Sep, 2024 I was hoping I could post a photo here of one of many “shaving cream fights” in UH #4 in 1960. The resident upperclassman always made us clean up all the shaving cream on the walls and ceiling of the hallway. Those rooms were dreadful but, not really knowing any better, we all survived. Bill Ramsey ’64 was in the adjacent room on the first floor and remains a close friend today 64 years later. Reply Leroy Lightbourne, Class of 1977 15 Sep, 2024 I am surprised that no one has mentioned the ‘Night of the Streakers’ fall 1973. As a Bronx native, seeing 40(?) naked men running around West Campus was a bit jarring and simultaneously hilarious. They all had footwear though! Reply Jack Paul, Class of 1965 23 Sep, 2024 I was on the second floor of UC-2. We had a lot of fun. One day we decided to throw water and soap suds down the length of the hall and skate from one end to the other on trays from the Straight. Needless to say the RA wasn‘t happy when the water started flowing into his room on the first floor. The buildings were conveniently located to the hill and the Straight, and then farther on down Stewart Avenue were bars and a bookstore for buying textbooks. Reply Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. 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