“I got stuck in the elevator,” said Roxana Pereira, a culture and media major at Lang. “And that’s when I realized how many flaws the building had.”
Pereira is one of many students who have expressed grievances about The New School’s newest $372 million gem, the University Center (UC), which opened in late January after years of anticipation. Though meant to be a communal hub for the entire school, with Parsons moving into its new home downtown, the building has been the source of many complaints lately by students and professors who are not happy with the outcome.
The first residents moved into dormitories at Kerrey Hall, which occupy the top nine floors of the UC, in August 2013. The main components containing the classrooms, library, auditorium and cafeteria did not open until the following January. In the time leading up to the UC’s opening, residents living at Kerrey Hall contended with construction obstacles, elevator outages and hanging wires, and just days before the grand opening a water main break flooded the bottom two floors which house the residence amenities as well as additional class and lecture spaces.
“No sooner than we think it’s finished, there’s an accident like the flood or there’s a change,” said Vice President for Design, Construction and Facilities Management Lia Gartner. “It’s forever being worked on.”
According to Gartner, who has worked on the building since the project’s inception in 2004, the week before the UC’s opening was meant to focus on finishing touches, but was instead used to deal with the flood damage. “That was a genuine setback,” she told the Free Press. “A tremendous amount of energy was diverted to dealing with the damage, to drying it out, and to doing remedial work.”
Despite the trouble caused by the unforeseen flood, some students are also facing hurdles with the facilities that were not damaged. For example, some of the UC’s stairs, a design feature meant to save energy and encourage quick floor-to-floor access, have also been blocked off by white walls of draped sheets for construction. Gartner said the stairs are blocked because additional glass-fiber-reinforced concrete panels are being installed to the staircases and should be completed within a month.
The 490-seat auditorium was touted as a multipurpose space that could host fashion shows, theatre, dance and musical performances, and transforms using partition walls that fold away to expand the seating capacity to 800. When not being used in its full scope, the partitions create several pseudo-classrooms. Not everyone is thrilled with the partitions, however.
“I’m actually in a partitioned classroom in the auditorium, and it’s a complete disaster,” said Jessica Auger, a sophomore at Lang. “There’s just a lot of learning in a very small and loud space.”
Andreas Kalyvas, chair of the Politics Department at The New School for Social Research, also described sound and lighting issues during the seminar he teaches, noting inconveniences when events are in progress in the auditorium during class time.
“Whenever there is an event, it’s too noisy,” Kalyvas told the Free Press. “It causes deconcentration. It disrupts the process of teaching.”
“My sense is that we rushed to open this semester,” said Noah Isenberg, professor and chair of culture and media studies at Lang. “The new building and all of the facilities were really not, in fact totally done, and the semester was suddenly here and it was too late.”
But Neil Greenberg, a professor of choreography at Lang, is optimistic about the future of the auditorium. “This is clearly a learning experience for all of us,” he said. “After this first use of Tishman we’ll be able to offer specific suggestions for ways to make the space more viable for dance performance.”
Lang’s dance and theatre senior productions are the first groups to perform in the new Tishman Auditorium. The Lang Theatre Department Senior show, MONSTER(S), directed by Cecilia Rubino, has faced issues with lighting and sound equipment in the auditorium.
According to Theater Senior Nora Kennedy, there were not enough lights for the production. The lights are fine for some seat configurations but not for others.
According to Thomas Whalen, Director of Facilities Management, administration is now reevaluating the needs of the auditorium. “Much of the work required to assess the additional lighting needs will be conducted while the auditorium is closed for repairs this summer,” he said.
Kennedy, however, said The Lang Theatre Department Senior Work is happy to use the the new auditorium. “Despite the distinct technical obstacles we have to overcome, our aim is to show the school and the administration the potential the space has,” she said.
The dance department has also been facing issues with the space. The original plans for the auditorium did not include a sprung floor for dance productions.
“Dancers need a sprung floor, just so that if you’re jumping it doesn’t shock your body or hurt you,” Dance student Natalie Marrero said.
At first, the Dance Department was unable to receive funds to cover the rental cost of a new sprung floor in time for the spring show. But, according to Greenberg, the Lang Student Union gave funds to pay for it. Whalen told the Free Press that the purchase of the floor will be complete when the auditorium re-opens on August 8.
Some students feel that there was a lack of communication between the administration and groups using the new facilities. “What it boils down to is they built a space without consulting any type of performer, be it a professor from theatre, or dance,” said theater senior Katarina Grob.
“The auditorium was not specifically designed as a performance space,” said Whalen. “But the popularity of the space, and the desire for many groups to utilize the auditorium, has prompted us to reconsider some of the design specifications.”
As for what students can expect for next semester, Gartner and Whalen confirmed that the bottom two levels of the UC containing dorm amenities as well as high occupancy classrooms and computers labs, which were damaged during the flood, will be restored over the summer.
Despite these unexpected problems, some students remain optimistic. “Yeah there might be too much going on but so what it’s New York there’s always too much going on,” said Kunsu Kim, a student at Lang.
With reporting by: Charlotte Woods & NiQyira Rajhi
Jessica is currently a Journalism + Design Major minoring in Literature. A Chicago native, she enjoys arguing with people who think New York style pizza is better than Chicago deep dish, reading anything she can get her hands on, and exploring New York Cities' bakeries.
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