Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/04/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]One beautiful Spring day while I was a student at City my last class ended at noon and I decided to walk downtown to catch the subway home at 42nd St. City is at 137th St. When I got to 116th, I had to stifle a brief spell of dizziness, feeling that I had slipped the bonds of gritty NY reality and been somehow magically transported to Kansas. All of a sudden I was surrounded by athletic, blue-eyed crew cut guys and gorgeous blond women who looked like they'd all been raised on good old Kansas corn. What a shock! My God, I thought, is this what it's like to go to a real college? The gritty North Campus of City where I spent most of my time looked like an extension of the streets of NY. Columbia was off in a world of its own, with budding trees and green grass and beautiful paved paths; an isolated oasis from all the madness on the streets. I couldn't believe it was real. As soon as I walked through the campus South Gate things got back to normal pretty quickly, of course, and I regained my sanity. Maybe it *was* all a dream... Regards, Dick CCNY Class of 1962 On Apr 24, 2008, at 9:43 PM, Rei Shinozuka wrote: > i grew up across the street from columbia, my dad got his PhD there, > and taught there for 25 years. i went to the college, business and > engineering schools. the columbia > campus is the nicest in manhattan, and is particularly pretty in the > spring. for those visiting new york, take the 1/9 up to 116th & > broadway > and check it out. > > i hope at least one of my kids goes to old columbia. it's brand of > ivy > league is less white shoe than that blend of new york brilliant and > edgy. > i think the school has a quirky edge to it, reflected in literature > and film. > nabokov's clare quilty is a columbia graduate, marathon man's > hoffman a > neurotic columbia graduate student, spiderman's (movie) peter parker > is a young > columbia student wrestling about power and responsibility, and all the > ghostbusters were on the columbia faculty, prior to their > entreprenurial > venture. of course, columbia has one or two notable alumni, > including the > recently-minted richest man in world as of Feb 2008. > > most of the real-life students i'd met at columbia were very > laid back. of the 5 ivies that are not harvard, princeton or yale, > i'd advance the proposition that columbians lament that fact the > least. > > our 25th reunion is in june. but the most currently > visible alumnus of the class of 83 is too busy campaigning to swing > by. > bummer. > > mark, love to see some of your images. > > -rei > > > On Apr22 22:52, Mark Rabiner wrote: >> >> I was walking around the Columbia Quad yesterday filled with kids >> not one of >> them 7! >> Most seemed 22.2! >> Your kid must be amazingly smart. >> I got lots of shots. >> >> To get into Columbia I think you need more than perfect SAT scores >> and an A+ >> average plus genius IQ. >> You need to have invented a new way to build houses out of used >> Styrofoam >> and a solar powered blowtorch in developing world countries and >> built quite >> a few yourself. >> >> To me if you're that smart you should be starting your own college >> not be in >> one. But they all seem nice enough. >> Frisbee is still big. >> I got more shots of the Rodin "The Thinker" or Poet. >> This time I walked on the lawn. No Maynard G. Krebs. >> >> Unless you are talking about Columbia South America? >> >> Mark William Rabiner >> markrabiner.com >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > -- > Rei Shinozuka shino@panix.com > Ridgewood, New Jersey > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information