<p>Help! My daughter just called me and is frantic, since she pulled the short straw in the housing lottery and all she could get was either a dorm on 2nd Street or Lafayette. She will be a junior in the fall, so had a low priority housing number. She is upset due to the distance from the NYU main campus and is worried it will be difficult to get back and forth in time for classes and also will be far from the library, gym, and grocery stores. Does anyone have anything positive to say about this dorm? It would set my mind at ease and I could tell her reasons to look on the bright side. From what I've seen online, there seem to be pluses and minuses to this address. Over 1,000 students live there, so they are all in the same boat in terms of distance from campus. The website says there is an exercise room in the building. Is this true? </p>
<p>The good news is that she will be living with two friends, so she is glad about that. She is just disappointed that she had so few choices this time around. I'm looking for some positives here that I can relay to her. Anyone??</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>As for grocery stores, she will be right near Chinatown, so lots of good cheap restaurants and produce. Dim sum for lunch is yummy. As for transportation, many options with walking, subway or NYU shuttle. Close to downtown and courts for internships. Maybe not ideal, but there are a lot worse options in life. </p>
<p>(about me: long time NYC resident and parent of NYU2016 student starting this fall, so I can’t provide more specific information on the dorm.)</p>
<p>Thanks Brooklyn Guy!
Congratulations to your son/daughter starting at NYU in the fall. My daughter lived in Weinstein her first year and liked it very much. Right now as a sophomore she lives in Palladium on E.14th Street and loves it there. I am hoping she’ll get used to being in the Chinatown area. She’s a vegetarian, so hopefully there will be some restaurant options she can choose from or some local markets she’ll like. </p>
<p>I appreciate the positive post :o)</p>
<p>Lafayette isn’t a bad dorm, without a doubt. There’s shuttle buses that take around 10 minutes to get to campus and it’s right near Chinatown, so there’s a lot of grocery options. The shuttle is also 24-hrs, so transport will never be unavailable. There’s two gyms: Coles and Palladium. Both aren’t too far from campus. It may be inconvenient, but at least it’s there. </p>
<p>She should have known she was going to get the short end of the stick though. Juniors always get low priority leaving them with the most undesirable dorms. And when you are assigned your housing registration time days in advance, you should know by then that you would be out of luck. It would have been cheaper anyway if her and her friends tried to get an apartment, if they didn’t like the NYU options like 2nd Street and Lafayette.</p>
<p>Glad to hear that Lafayette isn’t as bad as she feared. I think once she gets used to it, everything will be ok.</p>
<p>jackhammer25: you are right that she had a strong suspicion that she would have slim pickings in the housing lottery. She didn’t get to pick until something like 4:00pm yesterday. By that time, virtually everything was taken, except 2nd Street and Lafayette. Oh well. As for an apartment, she didn’t feel ready to take that step at this point. Maybe her senior year. At that point she will be only 1 year from graduation and will be more willing to take on that responsibility. I think she wants to have the security of the dorm for awhile longer and I don’t blame her. I went straight to graduate school right after college and lived on campus for both undergraduate and graduate school–I really liked being right on campus. Of course, in those days, everyone ate together in the dining halls and it was a nice social experience. We all relaxed together at the end of the day at dinner and then headed back to our rooms to study. These days, especially at NYU, lots of the students get their meals in the dining halls to-go and eat them in their rooms. What a difference 30 years makes! :)</p>