Northrop sits on the corner of Elm and Prospect Streets, the intersection of the Upper Elm, Lower Elm, and Center Campus houses (Northrop is part of Upper Elm). Obviously, I’d say this is the best place to live on campus. A few things that Northrop (and only Northrop, in many cases!) can boast:
Right across the street from JMG/the PVTA bus stop. Large college events (e.g. Convocation, Rally Day) are held in JMG, and having the bus stop right there means you can wait for the bus from our living room (perfect for rainy days!)Short (~5-10 minute) walk to pretty much anywhere else you’d want to go: downtown, the gym/music building/health services, the quad, anywhere in betweenFull kitchen AND an operating dining hall. Although our dining hall isn’t open for meals very much (four days a week, food served for lunch and dining room available for dinner), the room is always open to residents. The tables make it a popular study space during non-dining hours, and having a dining hall also means we always have hot/cold water and an extra microwave available! There’s a full kitchen in the basement, too (there’s always some baking on Mountain Day :))Three other dining halls (Cutter/Ziskind, Chase/Duckett, and Lamont) right nearby. Northrop is literally surrounded by houses with dining halls, which often covers most if not all of the menu options for any given meal, if you don’t want the vegan/vegetarian option offered at Northrop/Gillett.Working elevator. The house is handicapped accessible! The elevator doesn’t go to the fifth floor, but it does go to the basement.Working fireplace. I LOVE coming home to the warm fire when it’s cold out. It’s the best. (Also it feels pretty cool to be able to turn on fire with the flick of a light switch, which is how Northrop’s gas fireplace works)Mostly singles. Quad houses love to brag about this, but in reality, they’re not the only ones who can claim four years of singles. You can expect to have your own room from your sophomore year onward, and some first-years will have a single from the start.Room cubbies! Most rooms in Northrop and Gillett are in little groups I like to call cubbies, where two or three rooms and closets open up to a shared space that opens up to the hallway. It makes more sense if you look at the floor plan or the partial picture of my sophomore year cubby above, but there are doorways off the hallways that open up to smaller areas containing the doors to the bedrooms and closets. So, your room and closet might share the same hallway entry as another person’s room/closet. Not only does this mean you can get to know some of your neighbors with the privacy of a single, but you can also leave your shoes in the cubby area (great for winter, you don’t have to worry about tracking muck into your room), and you have two doors to shut if you’re concerned about noise. (Not that Northrop is noisy – except when we’re having a dance party in the dining hall… but seriously, it’s usually pretty quiet.)Finished basement and two other furnished common areas. In addition to the awesome study space that is our dining hall, our living room (the Vortex), an enclosed study (the TV room), and the basement all provide table space and couches, making them great hangout spots. The Vortex is the one most often occupied; there’s always a group of us eating there during mealtimes, and it’s where we have our weekly Friday afternoon teas and Wednesday night study breaks, among other gatherings. Movie nights take place in the basement, which got a new TV last year. The study is also good for TV, as well as meetings where closed doors can be nice, and the house’s library and piano are there, too. Basically, there are plenty of places for residents to hang out around the house; you can always find people downstairs! Big Sib/Little Sib—okay, so all the houses have this. But the week of secret gifts and our culminating semi-costumed reveal tea and the sib potluck dinners we have later in the year still make it one of my favorite parts of the house community. <3
