McBain Floor Three: A little oasis for the degenerate, a relic of a bygone era
Three’s a crowd
McBain has always been synonymous with a debauched lifestyle. Carman on steroids, it has held an allure for the fucboi for generations. Yet this year the third floor of McBain seems well on its way to eclipsing even the most diabolical of the illustrious building’s forbears.
An air of tranquility has flowed into McBain following extensive summer renovations on floors eight through four over the last two years. In addition, the building’s lobby was renovated last year, and the second floor was restored only a few years ago.
Floor three is the exception: a little oasis for the degenerate, a relic of a bygone era.
Some don’t even make it to the bed
The old blue-painted drab doors and scarred, flaking, matte-white wallpaper resemble the interior of a mental institution, and the wretched carpet breathes out the vomit and Nikolai of ages past. Even the mice are often too repulsed to venture into the public thoroughfares. The bathrooms are a perfumery for the distasteful.
In short, floor three is the perfect breeding ground for the craziest specimens of the year. Wanton maniacs have flocked to its shores like Albatross on the wing, and, between them, they have established a sanctuary for the rowdy.
Sundays on three resemble the Somme, and even weekday mornings find trails of Keystone, Coors, and—dare I say it—Kirkland light scattered over the halls. Any form of cardboard packaging lies deceased in shreds alongside a Himalayan ridge of empty alcoholic containers by the bins. (The recycling bins remain empty). Half-eaten pizza, crushed goldfish, and low-calorie popcorn form a congealed collage on wall and floor alike.
Floor rituals
It’s like an Animal House themed Pollock.
More impressively, floor three has acquired notoriety for its vandalism, which works in unison with the debris and litter, forming a symphony of waywardness. Residents have woken up to sections of cork and plywood, rent asunder, jammed into their door, slammed against their walls. One poor board was disintegrated into sawdust by the time of Sunday’s dawn. Its remains, some say, are still being found to this day.
The systematic deposition of these boards was something of a standard ritual until Housing decided to give up—only a Ground Zero remains. One abject e-mail from the RA reminded students of the whereabouts of information regarding campus services, saying that they could be found either on his door or where the notice board used to be. It’s not like the notices fare much better anyway…
Boards were only the beginning.
Some don’t even make it to the bed pt. 2
One resident, a vigilante and budding fireman, took it upon himself to extinguish a fire all throughout the floor’s Southern corridor, making the environment look like a cross between the music video for OT Genesis’ Coco and a number from Frozen.
Another smashed a mirror in the bathroom with such force that I found shards in the shower 15 feet away—it must be said, however, that the thoughtful gesture prevented an unaware resident from stepping in the swamps of vomit behind the scattered shards.
More recently, one aspiring Banksy grafitti’d a profane message to the Floor’s RA in Sharpie which then allegedly had to be removed with Everclear.
In response to these transgressions, a “Neighborhood Watch” was set up on the floor.
The “Neighborhood Watch” after their name-tag Bust
Progress, they tell me, is slow since they’re dealing with a never-before-seen type of Vandal, yet they have had some success in reclaiming a cluster of name tags stolen from floor 3 early on in the semester. Our prayers should be with them in these dark times.
Despite all their shortcomings, floor three hosts arguably the tightest community of the Columbia world. Although advertisements for room-swapping on the Class of 2018 group imply that they’d rather lose housing than live on floor three, and although the floor’s small female population and isolated pockets of the righteous gaze upon all they observe, all they hear with the contempt and despair of a sober visit to Cannons, the floor is superlatively vibrant.
A typical Sunday scene
It’s like an Aztec priesthood. Savagery binds residents together like the Greek letters of a frat; happiness is high and spirits soar. Columbia stress, so familiar to the average student, is as distant to them as a sense of decorum. It’s about time the City of Manhattan declared Mcbain Floor 3 a wildlife Sanctuary, for the sites are truly extraordinary.