Sample dorm room from Jasper Hall. MANHATTAN.EDU/COURTESY
By Andrew Mannion, Asst. Sports Editor
New renovations to Manhattan College’s residence halls have left students in 2023 with upgraded living opportunities on campus.
The Quadrangle had the opportunity to get an inside look, while providing details of all the different residence hall options, showing the state-of-art upgrades and checking in with residents’ feelings about them.
Renovated last year in 2022, winding stairs lead students to Chrysostom Hall which provides residents with single rooms. Commonly called “C-Block,” the brick building offers 60 rooms where residents can live independently. These rooms provide a quiet place to study while still near the campus center.
Chrysostom Hall provides residents with a laundry room on the bottom floor, three different common areas that include a television and furniture, and two other kitchen areas where residents can cook their own meals.
On the other side of campus, Horan Hall provides students with recently renovated suites and newly built apartments. Horan Hall has room for approximately 400 students over its 11 floors, providing plenty of space and privacy for all residents.
Horan Hall has many features to help the living experience for everyone there. It features a laundry room on each floor, a common area and a miniature kitchen located on each floor. On the first floor, a recreation room includes games like ping pong and pool. There is also a meditation room where students can relax and unwind after a long day of classes.
A current resident of Horan Hall, junior Matt Renda, says he enjoys all of the commodities of Horan Hall. The opening of the bridge and the newly added apartments are just some of the amenities he is appreciative of.
“I think Horan [Hall] definitely improved by now having apartment-style rooms as a dorming option,” Renda said. “The bridge should open soon, making it convenient for me to walk to classes. I would say that Horan got better from the last time I lived here, which was last year.”
Similar to Horan Hall, Lee Hall provides students with suite-style rooms. Over 11 floors, Lee Hall is home to approximately 550 students. The rooms are all suite-style, having two rooms of 2 beds. These rooms also share a bathroom, which the residents must maintain and clean. The Arches program is also held in Lee Hall, where program members bond on their floor with other members, leading to a tight-knit community among floormates.
Sophomore Olivia White, a resident of Lee Hall and a member of the Arches program, spoke highly of the dormitory. She noted the cleanliness and community around the Arches program.
“Lee Hall was very nice,” said White. “I liked having a suite with our bathroom. It was also fun being in Arches. I got close with a lot of friends in the Arches program very quickly, and it was nice to spend the year with those people.”
Close to the center of campus, Jasper Hall is one of the only residence halls which actually has housing for graduate students. It has over 200 residents in double rooms and each floor shares a communal bathroom.
A student who lived in Jasper Hall during the 2022-23 school year, Tadeo Quellet, said he wanted to be more impressed with his stay at Jasper Hall. He said that although he loved the tight-knit community associated with Jasper Hall, the building seemed to be outdated and had problems dealing with cleanliness.
“I felt like Jasper Hall had a really nice location,” said Quellet. “It was also easy to meet people on your floor. Other than that, I felt like it was very rundown and falling apart. The rooms themselves were nice, but the hallways and the communal bathrooms were in terrible shape. Everything was old. There was a huge asbestos problem in the ceiling. There were bugs and cockroaches. We saw cockroaches a few times when I lived there.”
With dorms undergoing renovations, options and lifestyles for students at MC for residency only seem to be expanding.