• Join The Fed
• Advertise with The Fed

• About Us
• Contact

In This Issue

• I'm the Man in the Glass Box
• A Beginner's Guide to Smoking Cigarettes
• The Epic Drunken Email
• Letter From Some Dude
• 5 Easy Steps to Becoming a Barnard Girl
• The Cold, Harsh Reality that is SEAS
• Fun With Freshman Housing
• F.E.D.S. vs. The Fed
• First Year Friendships
• The Fed Guide to What's What: Points of Interest on Campus
• The Fed Guide to What's What: Where to Shop
• The Fed Guide to What's What: Where to Drink
• A Campus Club Wish List
• How to Win Friends and Alienate Your Parents
• Legalized Speed a Huge Hit in NYC
• Fed / Counterfed
• GLAAD vs. Kevin Smith
• Horoscopes
• News Briefs
• Wacky Fun Whitey
• THEY Watch
• The Staff of 17.1

The rubble which Lerner Hall came out of - and hopefully one day will return to.

Katie O'Shea

Many rebel spies lost their lives to get us these schematics.

First of all, let us be the five-hundredth disembodied voice to welcome you to Columbia University. We are sure you will find navigating the throes of administrative whimsy a wonderful challenge. Where others have failed before you, we are certain you will as well.

Now then, Alfred Lerner Hall. This is your brand new student center, or glorified mailbox. By brand new, of course, we mean two years old. In fact, most of the more attractive features of the building have already been pillaged and depleted. However, there is plenty for you, the freshman, to enjoy. We will be your guide to this building that is often referred to as the Fishbowl, the Death Star, or That Fucking Monstrosity. The building is yours to enjoy until we finally initiate the flight sequence and send the damn thing to NYU, where it belongs.

Lerner Hall first opened its two entrances and fifteen exits in the fall of 1999. The New York Times called it "startlingly striking." The Washington Post called it "strikingly startling." Architectural Digest called it a building. Glenda refuses to return our calls. Bernard Tschumi called it a masterpiece, and most students call it disgusting. We here at the Fed only call it when we need more beer money.

The ramp system is the most prominent aspect of Lerner, and serves as the biggest affront to common decency and good taste since Ruth Bader-Ginsburg performed at Scores. This system connects the two buildings that actual make up Lerner Hall.

In days of old, whence these two building were mortal foes, errant arrows and cannonballs meant for the adversarial structure often fell upon the poor heads of the students. One great day, a great man named Bernard great Tschumi said, "low, let these buildings be not in strife. I shall fashion a part terrazzo, part glass ramp system that shall forever join the two, and thus live action Donkey Kong shall be a reality." And it was so, and it was good.

The western tower, which is the taller - and therefore superior - of the two, holds the offices of Psychological Services, Lerner Administration, and the Columbia University Apparel Sweatshops. The nicest lounge in the building, in fact, where you can find a full service martini bar, Asian massage, free long distance, and an available computer at all hours of the day, is tucked away on the sixth floor. On the fifth floor, you will find the Fed office. This is the sole reason for Lerner still standing today. Had they housed us elsewhere, we would have reduced it to smoldering rubble long ago.

The Eastern, shorter tower is mostly filled with vending machines, bric-a-brac, and genetic freaks. In the center of it all is the aforementioned ramp system. On the fifth floor sits what is oft referred to as the suicide lounge. Of course, no one has yet made it live up to its name, but there's always time. Perhaps you could be the first. Leave you mark on Columbia, or at least the floor.

Lerner Hall was designed by the Dean of the School of Architecture, Bernard Tschumi. Look him up in the directory and letter bomb his office. We're pretty sure it's in Avery. One interesting point in Tschumi's design scheme that is often overlooked is that the building is actually made for onetime use. Simply put, it is disposable. When something breaks in Lerner, they do not fix, but instead wait for the entire building to collapse. Then they build another.

A little known fact about the building is that there are fifteen different routes from any two given points within Lerner. Stairwells M through T actually don't go anywhere but to and from each other, kind of like this article. Likewise, there are numerous ways in and out of Lerner, and only seventy- five percent of them are on closed circuit television. Five of them involve a wallaby. One involves answering the riddle of the two-headed sphinx. Here's a hint: the answer is vodka, and lots of it.

Another interesting aspect about the building is the large glass wall, which makes it so appealing to stalkers. When a fire alarm goes off, it turns the entire building into a giant strobe-lit East German dance club. The wall is actually made up of 43 squares of a rare Uzbekistani glass that is 40% sugar, 40% spice, and 20% everything nice. That's right, the Lerner glass is made of little girls. Give it a lick and see for yourself.

Oh, we could go on like this for days, but we can't tell you everything about your new Student Center/Waste Management Facility. By the way, avoid the stir-fry. Instead of spending your semester studying, why not get to know your student center. Once you have isolated the holes in the structural integrity, you can easily destroy it with one photon blast.