Education

A broken elevator, crawling pests, big tuition

By Senida Wright

Weinstein Hall, one of NYU’s biggest dormitories, has its pluses and its minuses.

“Location, No. 1,” said Lacy Hardy, 21, an NYU film major and peer assistant at Weinstein. “ It is so nice being super central. The 6, N & R [subway trains] are all right here, so it is so easy getting anywhere.” 

Weinstein, which was built in 1963, “has a lot of nice history,” said Marillia Chou Serodio, 20, a communicative disorders major. “ But, at the same time, an older building comes with all the regular old building issues.”  

“The facility is ugly,” said Brooke Roberts, also a peer assistant. “and we get a lot of facility requests.”

A broken elevator, roaches, clogged shower drains, the dust and dirt of constant renovations. Those are the source of some work orders at Weinstein, where a flier next to the elevator that breaks down is flier with a warning about the presence of a potentially deadly substance: “Notice of Asbestos Abatement,” its larger letters read. The fine print said the asbestos removal project ran from June 17, 2024, through July 20, 2024.

Some NYU students have better accommodations. Shemar Forbes, 21, has lived in Lipton Hall, Coral Tower and Palladium Hall and visited Carlyle Court. “I’d probably say Palladium is the best, just because of the access you have to the dining hall, the gym, the career center. You just have it all,” said Forbes, who is majoring in journalism and political science.

With the cost of on-campus tuition above $90,000, some student say the dorms should be  upgraded. 

“If you were to get a one-bedroom apartment you could get it for like $2,000, which is still a lot,” Hardy, the film major, said. “For some NYU dorms you’re paying, for a double-suite, maybe, like, $2,500 to still share a room with another person. Which is a really big sacrifice.”