OfEternity

The objective is to tell us a cool fact about Columbia. The winner who gives the single most awesome fact gets eternal glory. Let The Challenge begin.

CsixHtwelveOsix

There's a legend that the first-year who finds the hidden owl in the Alma Mater statue will become the class valedictorian.

Another cool fact: I found the owl when I visited last summer.

yapsuper

Wikipedia doesn't know when Professor Green joined Columbia... they write 2003 and then 1996 two para down.

ConfucianNemisis

The 'sundial' on college walk had a giant granite sphere whose shadow marked the time of year. It was removed because it showed signs of cracking and magically turned up in Michigan decades later...

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/sundial.html

yapsuper

I have to say that fact is pretty hard to beat

OfEternity

True, but don't stop trying! Additional glory to the person who can list all the movies/tv shows that have filmed on the Columbia campus. What was that movie about the graduate school art applicant...?

bing121086

The atom was split in the basement of Pupin hall; hence, the name of the Manhattan project was created.

As for movies featuring the campus: Ghostbusters, Spiderman 1 and 2, Hitch, there's one about a women's college with Julia Roberts, etc...

ConfucianNemisis

you're thinking of mona lisa smile- even though it ostensibly takes place at Wellesley, the lecture hall scene was shot in 309 Havemeyer, which probably has the most film credits of any columbia location because it's considered to be the best example of a classic 'college lecture hall.'

check out the video "lecture musical" here (http://www.prangstgrup.com/index_1000.html) which was produced by a student that managed to get funding to pull pranks on campus to see 309. alas most of them (the pranking students) are gone now, but their videos live on.

also, bing, contrary to popular belief the first self sustaining nuclear reaction was initiated in a racquet court under the west stands of Stagg field at the University of Chicago. The project got its name because research for the project culminated on the first floor of Pupin Hall. After Pearl Harbor the Project was moved to the University of Chicago to protect it from sea attack, but it kept the name Manhattan Project. However the LASER was invented there I believe, and the term originated in a Columbia grad students Thesis on the topic.

CsixHtwelveOsix

Too easy ... Wikipedia. :P

yapsuper

hmmm I can name one.... Hitch starring Will Smith.

phantom

*Disclaimer: may be exaggerated (but not purposefully -- this is how they were told to me)

There exists an underground labyrinth of tunnels (a combination of steam tunnels + tunnels left over from a former mental institution occupying those grounds used to transport patients). There is a rumored tunnel linking Low and Butler, (which I am still skeptical about) but people say it exists because the University President allegedly escaped through it during the riots in the 60s. In the late 80s, a student by the name of Ken Hechtman, an infamous tunneler, stole Uranium from Pupin Hall...he then fled from the government and was not heard from again until 2002 when he was revealed as a hostage of the Taliban while reporting in Afghanistan (very random fact -- sry). In addition, parts of the first (alleged) cyclotron (atom splitter) still remain in the basement of Pupin today.

As you can see, I am quite fond of the tunnel legends.

Hm, what else...
- Columbia used to be located at Rockefeller Center.
- A baseball field used to lie where Butler is today (when half the campus, including Low, had already been built) -- not that interesting a fact by itself, but seeing the photo's pretty cool.

CsixHtwelveOsix

Actually I've heard of the Columbia tunnels before. Again, Wikipedia. :P

ConfucianNemisis

1) As far as I know the tunnels are all original Columbia connections, used for transporting coal to the old steam plant (you can still find old carts and see the rails for the carts in the tunnels). The only remaining building from the asylum in Buell Hall, the brick building west of Low. I believe the fabled Butler/Low tunnel was closed after the 1968 riot and subsequent police bust, if it ever existed. Grayson Kirk wasn't on campus when the occupation began, he was at a meeting downtown and was informed via phone.

Pupin hall was home of a cyclotron in the 50's (theres a great publicity photo of II Rabi cooking wieners on it to prove its not dangerous http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/Ma...bihotdogs.jpg), and there's some radioactive stuff allegedly still down there, including the magnets of the 'tron- most of its at the Smithsonian. The Uranium incident I've heard from the person who was allegedly student body president back then. Supposedly the kids grabbed some stuff and hauled it back to carman, where they were busted by the feds.

2) Columbia was never located at Rockefeller Center. Columbia recieved the land as a grant in the early 19th century when NY State was handing out grants to many of the newly started institutions of higher learning, Columbia got some then-worthless land that actually was a drain on resources until Mnahttan developement reached that far north. The midtown campus of Columbia from about 1854-1897 I believe, give or take, was located at Madison and 49th, right next to what wouldve been the exposed NY Central railroad tracks, which would later be buried to form Park Avenue. (lots of pictures of other stuff as well here: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/columbiana/photos.html) Columbia sold Rockefeller center in the 1980's for 400 million dollars, effectivlely doubling the then-endowment.

3) South Field used to be home of CU athletics when columbia moved to Morningside until a stadium could be built. After numerous grandiose plans for riverside stadiums were never funded, the University got a gift of land at the northern tip of manhattan which was developed into Baker Field in the 1920's. Columbia's favorite athletic photo is probably of Lou Gehrig at home plate- somewhere in front of John Jay hall, launching one towards Journalism (pixelated: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/gehrig.html) and theres an aerial shot of south lawn with a football game being played (http://c250.columbia.edu/images/c250...rialcampus.jpg)

bing121086

Columbia had three locations--one downtown, one in midtown, and the current location uptown since 1889, I think.

During my tour of campus a few years ago, the guide said that when the Casa Italiana opened, it was sponsored by Benito Mussolini. Alexander Hamilton, the first Sec of Treasury, went to Columbia, but he had to drop out to fight in the Revolutionary War.

ConfucianNemisis

Columbia Campuses
1) Park Place (1760-1857), 1 three story hall, between murray church and barclay streets, about a block and a half west of city hall. (http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/cu...s/image014.jpg)

2) 49th and Madison (1857-1897), after selling the lower estate (the trustees were more interested in real estate management than running a school at this point in history) they realized they needed to move the college somewhere. So they bought the New York State Institution for Deaf Mutes, and housed Columbia there for 40 years, on the block between 49th and 50th and Park and Madison, directly opposite what is now the Waldorf Astoria, and on the other side of the block with Saks 5th Ave and St Patricks Cathedral, i.e. one block east of Columbia's midtown land holdings which would become Rockefeller Center. Back then it wasn't much of a draw.

3) Morningside Heights (1897-Present), The mini campus in midtown was far too small Columbias new found ambitions to be a major university, and so the blocks from 116th to 120th street between amsterdam and broadway were bought and slowly built on over time. Low Plaza was supposed to be an open vista inviting the city in, but developement kinda ended that idea, so COlumbia snapped up the remaining land from 116th to 114th st (South Lawn) a few years later.

I'm pretty sure the mussolini association is a bit of a legend, although the building is associated with the italian government so there may have been a connection, but no great secret columbia-facist-conspiracy.

Columbias Top Dropouts:

-Alexander Hamilton: Dropped out to join Washington's Continental Army and never recieved his degree. The story goes that when a mob arrived at the college on Park Place in search of King's College's loyalist president, Hamilton awoke the president and then held off the crowd through masterful oratory long enough for Myles Cooper to escape to british ships.

-Jack Kerouac: The famed beat writer of "On the Road" came to Columbia on a football scholarship. Injury ended his football playing and Kerouac eventually dropped out.

-Langston Hughes: Hughes was a student at the School of Mines (SEAS Pride!) at the bidding of his father, but he left after a year and joined the Navy instead, and became world famous for his writings.

-Lou Gehrig: The Iron Horse played baseball for Columbia for two years before being signed away by the Yankees. The fact that Gehrig didn't have any particular fondness for Alma Mater where he felt uncomfortable amidst snobbery and ridicule, coming from a poor immigrant background himself.

-Eudora Welty: The famed southern writer spent a year at the Columbia Business School, staying in the only female dorm at the time, Johnson Hall (now Wien Hall). She moved back south after her father died.

-Alicia Keys- After graduating early from HS, Keys spent a short while enrolled at Columbia before dropping out to focus on her music.

-Lauryn Hill- More or less the same as above.

Isamu Noguchi- A renowned sculptor, Noguchi enrolled at Columbia in 1922 to pursue premed studies, but left after 2 years to pursue his art full time. http://www.noguchi.org/

José Raúl Capablanca- An interesting fellow- world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. Enrolled in SEAS in 1910, but had his money withdrawn because he spent more time on chess than classes, so he left after one semester. http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebr...apablanca.html

Mortimer J. Adler- One of the early fathers of the Great Books movement. Finished college in 3 years but never graduated because he refused to take the swim test, although he enrolled in grad school immediately thereafter. He brought the Core Curriculum to the University of Chicago, and St. Johns College in Annapolis.

-Theodore Roosevelt- No introduction really needed, he attended Columbia Law, but left without taking a degree when elected to the state assembly.

-FD Roosevelt- Also attended Columbia Law without taking a degree, but because he already had passed the bar.

You can look up famous people associated with columbia here, though it just scratches the tip of the iceberg: http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebr...le_columbians/