By YANNIC RACK | The Pace University campus around Spruce St. became a little livelier than usual this past week, as hundreds of students moved into a brand new dorm.
On Sat., Aug. 29, the 34-story tower at the corner of William and Beekman Sts. opened its doors to 770 students, mostly juniors and seniors, who rolled their luggage into new rooms, some with stunning views.
The new residence hall sports three student lounges, a rec room, two kitchens and laundry facilities. “There’s also a gym with like five treadmills, so it’s not really that much,” Matthew Tighe, 19, a sophomore with a major in film studies, said Thursday. “But it’s a nice building.”
“I like it, it’s closer to school,” said Sydney, a 20-year-old business major who was clutching a salad bowl she had brought back for lunch. Like Tighe, she moved here from another Pace dorm on nearby John St. “It’s just new, I guess,” Tighe said. “It’s more expensive than John St. but it’s nicer.”
In addition to the slim glass tower there is now a public plaza at the corner of William and Beekman Sts., complete with benches and as yet unfilled planting beds, offering passers-by and workers the chance to linger and enjoy a lunch break in the waning summer sunshine.
Last Thursday, Sept. 3, around midday, Christopher Smith was dancing around on the sidewalk in front of the building. He was dressed up in a costume of a giant bagel, wildly flapping his arms and only stopping occasionally to talk to someone or hand out business cards.
He was advertising for the Long Island Bagel Café, whose local branch is just around the corner on Fulton St. “My boss told me to go to the dorm and let everyone know that our store is giving a 10 percent discount to Pace students. And also to give out these little cards,” he said, adding that he goes by “Chris the Dancing Bagel.”
It seems the local businesses have at least as much reason to get excited about a new dorm as the students. The manager of the Bagel Café, who jokingly gave his name as Justin Bagels, said students make up anywhere between 5-10 per cent of his customers. “We love the Pace kids, we love them,” he said.
Directly next to the new building, on William St., the Downtown Pharmacy sells a variety of snacks and drinks, and also staffs a prescription counter in the back of the store.
Henry Vasquez, the manager there, said the pharmacy started offering discounts to students just in time for the move-in date five days ago. “It’s not something we had in place before, but we knew we would have more traffic coming in. It’s right next to us,” he said.
For students with a valid ID, the pharmacy offers 10 per cent off on most items, and also waives the $5 minimum for credit card purchases. “That’s just for the students, because sometimes you just want to grab a soda and not spend five dollars,” said Vasquez, who estimates that the Pace population makes up a fifth of the store’s customers.
“We carry most of the essentials, like toothbrushes and all that stuff they might need,” he said.
Milan Ganatra, an 18-year-old sophomore studying computer science, was just coming back from lunch at a nearby Subway sandwich shop, where he said Pace students pay up to 20 per cent less. They can also use their cafeteria cards to pay at some of the surrounding restaurants, which is convenient. And the dorm wasn’t too bad either, Ganatra said.
