<p>i know they are supposed to be even but are there some residential colleges that are unofficially better than others? if your going to princeton this fall pm me and well get some **** started.</p>
<p>Conventional wisdom is, best to worst:</p>
<ol>
<li>Rocky</li>
<li>Mathey</li>
<li>Forbes (except the extension, which is the worst housing on campus)</li>
<li>Wilson</li>
<li>Butler</li>
</ol>
<p>I'm guessing that when Whitman is finished it will be worse than Rocky and Mathey but better than the rest.</p>
<p>i generally agree, but there are many people who would place wilson over forbes, because of wilson's central location and forbes's relatively distant one. and i think whitman, when finished, will be at least as desirable as rocky and matthey. it will have similar gothic architecture (by the world's leading traditional architect), will be somewhat more centrally located, and as the first college to be built <em>as</em> a college, from the ground up, will have the most logical layout and modern amenities. i also think butler, when reconstructed, will leapfrog the forbes/wilson group. although the architecture won't be any better, the layout will, and it is said that it will feature the largest bedrooms on campus.</p>
<p>renderings, construction photos, and webcams of whitman:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/rc/map/whitman/%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/rc/map/whitman/</a>
<a href="http://facphoto.princeton.edu/SimpleViewer/?album=June_2006&PHPSESSID=d39ea58dffdd6af01f6d95a7a47563ed%5B/url%5D">http://facphoto.princeton.edu/SimpleViewer/?album=June_2006&PHPSESSID=d39ea58dffdd6af01f6d95a7a47563ed</a>
<a href="http://iqeyecam1.princeton.edu/appletvid.html?width=1424?height=704%5B/url%5D">http://iqeyecam1.princeton.edu/appletvid.html?width=1424?height=704</a>
<a href="http://iqeyecam2.princeton.edu/appletvid.html?width=1424?height=704%5B/url%5D">http://iqeyecam2.princeton.edu/appletvid.html?width=1424?height=704</a></p>
<p>and of new butler:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/rc/map/butler/%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/rc/map/butler/</a></p>
<p>I have to disagree with you folks. I am a graduate of Princeton, and have been in many many Princeton dorm rooms, both colleges and upperclass housing. Forbes is a country club. It's the only one with carpeting, A/C, and private bathrooms. The new wing rooms even have walk-in closets. They are the most comfortable rooms on campus and overlook a lovely golf course. In addition, the dining hall has the best food and the best view.</p>
<p>And if you get Bloomberg when you are in Butler, you are in Four Seasons territory:).</p>
<p>yeah, but the problem is having to eat in Butler =)</p>
<p>yes, anne, forbes certainly has its selling points, including the golf course setting and view and of course the close proximity to the 'wa. but while rooms in the main inn are as nice as any on campus for underclassmen, the other half of the rooms leave much to be desired. new wing rooms, despite carpeting and bathrooms, are highly overrated. the doors are shoddy, the lighting is lousy, and, well, a one-room double is still a one-room double, however large it is. and i needn't say much about the annex and addition, with their cinderblock walls and scrubby courtyard. then, of course, for all rooms in forbes, there is the relative isolation. but i expect things to improve greatly in the next decade or so, when the annex/addition is torn down, the new wing is renovated, and a <em>new</em> new wing is added along the golf course (see attached .pdf on this point). also, development of the new "arts neighborhood" with new academic and retail facilities will improve the university place crossing and better integrate forbes with the rest of the campus. in short, the future is bright for the inn.</p>
<p>I guess people have different priorities. I highly valued having my own bathroom and a massive closet. Walking four flights to take a shower was a deal breaker for me =)
Also, on Sunday mornings, everyone came to Forbes for brunch. The other colleges were practically empty.<br>
But I guess if you have a bad roommate, you would want a multi-room suite so you can get away.<br>
I don't remember the doors being shoddy.</p>
<p>red-orange paint, stick-on number plates, etc. cf. doors in the main inn, made of sturdy, lacquered wood to match the furniture.</p>
<p>So your problem with the doors is aesthetic?
When I was a college student, having my own bathroom was more important than the aesthetics of the door. But I can appreciate your frustration with the door. It's ugly. And if you're willing to walk four flights to the bathroom to have a better door, then I applaude you for your good taste and conviction. =)</p>
<p>mostly aesthetic, yes. in fact, i think those doors actually stay open instead of automatically closing, so i actually <em>like</em> them functionally. but my point, remember, was that the new wing is vastly overrated, and the door aesthetics are just <em>one</em> of many minor shortcomings, along with lighting and layout, and also furniture (old and non-matching) and blinds (incorrigible). the 'wa proximity is unparalleled, and yes, having a bathroom is nice. and while i wouldn't trade the bathroom for a better door, i would trade it for a room in holder or blair, especially since they now have widely distributed bathrooms thanks to recent renovations.</p>
<p>Rocky: I'll grant you as having the best mix of architecture and actual rooms: all the dorms have been renovated, so the spaces are pretty nice (though bedrooms in Witherspoon can be kind of cramped). Nevertheless, it's pretty far from the center of campus. Some of my friends in Holder treated going to Frist much like I (a Wilsonian) would treat going to Nassau St. Still, I won't argue that it's the best college *architecturally<a href="though%20not%20necessarily%20socially">/i</a>.</p>
<p>Mathey: Highly overrated. A lot of the rooms are small, bathrooms are in the basement in several of the dorms, and entryways instead of hallways in some of the dorms can be kind of antisocial (though not necessarily, because the kids in Campbell seemed pretty tight). I think the gems of Mathey are Blair, Edwards (which has a lot of singles but is relatively far from the rest of the college), and the newly renovated Hamilton, but honestly, it ends there. </p>
<p>Forbes: Beautiful college (minus the Addition), great spirit and community, but far as hell from everything else. Definitely has some of the best rooms on campus, though. They have the best food by a mile, and the views of the golf course and the Grad College are stunning. Still...WAY too far, though hopefully the new arts neighborhood will help when it's constructed.</p>
<p>Butler: Hmmm. They live around a quad, which is good. And the hallways are nice and open, so the community is there. They have a beautiful college complex (Wu), and Bloomberg and 1915 are really nice-looking halls. I think what I like best about Butler is that the kids who live there develop (if they didn't already have it) a really wry, self-deprecating sense of humor. They know their housing sucks, and it draws them together. The buildings suck, but the people make it a great space to live in.</p>
<p>Wilson: I'm sorry, but I can't help but think this is the best college (partly because I live here and partly because...well...it is). Best location by far out of any college, one of the most if not THE most social residential college (thanks to all of the dorms being centered around a very open, very nice central quad, which no other college save Forbes can claim). Wilcox is a fun space with a lot of amenities, and Wilsonians put it to good use. Thursday through Saturday, Wilson is the place to be. 1927-Clapp is one of the newest dorms on campus, and has some of the nicest rooms on campus. Architecturally, the college is in the gutter on the whole, but for everything else (minus food, which Forbes wins with), Wilson owns.</p>
<p>phil, i was with you until "very nice central quad, which no other college save forbes can claim." wilson's quad is too steeply graded to be good for wiffle ball and other sports, and that sand pit takes up such a big chunk of the space that's useable. meanwhile, forbes has a more of a front yard than a quad, and rocky (especially if you consider 'spoon quad) and mathey both have decent quads for activities. personally, i hope the admin decides to tackle wilson after reconstructing butler in 2007-09, and taps a top architect like porphyrios (whitman) or venturi (wu) to design an entirely new wilson that's a credit to its namesake.</p>
<p>fscottie - good point. Blair and Holder are very beautiful. Especially now that there's no nude olympics in Holder :)</p>
<p>no nude olympics? mother****.</p>
<p>Yeah, f.scottie, what I meant was more that all of Wilson's dorms are situated around one quad (you could argue that 1938 and Gauss aren't, but they're honestly much closer to the quad than say Edwards is to Mathey's or Witherspoon and Buyers are to Rocky's). I probably should have said that Wilson's residential facilities are more concentrated than most other college's. Nevertheless, I actually prefer Wilson's quads to, say, Mathey's because Mathey has trees and stuff that get in the way of a completely open quad. Wilsonians are all over Wilson's quad for things like frisbee, baseball, soccer, volleyball, and yes, even wiffleball :) They're doing something to the quad right now, and I honestly hope they're not screwing it up. They haven't replanted the grass that was destroyed during Reunions (similar situation around campus), and there's a big construction zone in the center. What's that about?</p>
<p>But yeah, I agree that Wilson (minus Walker and '27-Clapp, which honestly looks like it could very easily be incorporated into the new Butler design) should be dynamited post-Butler construction.</p>
<p>anne36 -- awww, come on! Holder never looked better than in the snow and enlivened by the presence of 300 frolicking sophomores!</p>
<p>I dont know... most of those sophomores did not spend nearly enough time on the stairmaster before taking it all off.<br>
I prefer the way holder looks in movies =)</p>
<br>
<p>I agree that Wilson ... should be dynamited post-Butler construction.</p>
<br>
<p>i'm afraid that despite our shared hopes, it will be actually a while before this glorious occasion comes to pass. check out these lines, buried in the PWB article that announced the (well-intentioned, but ultimately misguided) decision to redesign the dining halls:</p>
<p>"The Butler-Wilson project will begin in summer 2008 with infrastructure work. The main renovation will take place during the summer of 2009 and be completed by that fall. The kitchens and serveries for the two colleges will be merged. Most of the other renovation will focus on Wilson College’s dining facility in Wilcox Hall."</p>
<p>simply stated, they wouldn't be renovating wilcox if they were planning to demolish it anytime soon. in fact, by merging its kitchen and servery with butler's, they not only put off any reconstruction of the college, but they also severely handicap the architect of its eventual replacement. that architect will have to site the new dining hall exactly where wilcox is, attached to wu, thus hampering his freedom to lay it out as he sees best fit. this siting will also virtually prescribe some (post)modern style, as a collegiate gothic dining hall attached at the hip to wu would look pretty bad (despite venturi's savvy borrowings from the collegiate gothic idiom).</p>
<p>my solution: the adminstration should hold off on the butler/wilson part of the dining hall project, and in the meantime initiate the design process for a new wilson. remember, the original buildings of wilson are OLDER than those of the original butler, which is being demolished, and they were designed by a far less distinguished architect than hugh stubbins, designer also of mudd library and jadwin physics. those original wilson buildings have been hated equally, from their opening, by traditional and modern architects alike, and now they're run down as well as ugly. here's critic raymond rhinehart, for example, in his "campus guide" to princeton:</p>
<p>"unfortunately for the architect and princeton, the six buildings of the new quad [wilson] look a lot like jersey motel modern. one half expects to see a neon sign on the roof and soda and ice machines against the pale, drab brick."</p>
<p>these buildings will only look shabbier by comparison once whitman debuts to almost certain acclaim and the new butler buildings come online. to good effect, though, because the need to bring wilson up to par with its peers will then become apparent to all but the most deeply buried ostrich head. the admin would then have the unique opportunity - underwritten by the imminent capital campaign - to pay the author of the ill-fated "quad plan" the tribute he deserves: namely, by enlisting demetri porphyrios (who else?) to design a red-brick collegiate gothic complex (recalling his class's 1879 hall and jiving with nearby jones, frist, mccosh, guyot, and eno), and then planting a big, fat statue of "tommy" in the middle - gilded to match the 1879 lions. now THAT would be a "flagship" college for tilghman et al, in their efforts to lasso upperclassmen into the four-year system!</p>
<p>I completely agree with you, f.scottie. In some ways, I think Wilson is actually uglier than Butler. At least there is a sense of cohesiveness with Butler's design. Wilson's architecture is much too varied and ugly for my taste.</p>
<p>One thing that really irks me, however, is the proposed designs for the new Butler. I think it's hideous as well! Granted, it'll be better looking and have better facilities than the present Butler, but I feel that the design will be something that will soon become outdated as well. If they are demolishing an entire residential college because of how heinous it is, wouldn't that mean they should at least design something that isn't offensive to the eyes? The awkward curves and the red brick would seem to clash with the grey gothic buildings around it. I'd be for something either really traditional or really modern, but this middle-of-the-road compromise won't do justice for Princeton students.</p>
<p>Does anyone else feel the same way?</p>