Pierce

On November 9, 2012, University officials announced plans to close Pierce Tower and Dining Commons at the end of the 2012-2013 school year and, over the next four years, construct a new dorm and dining hall on North Campus in its place. Pierce, which has had a rich culture and community for over a century, deserves to be celebrated.

The building is on the corner of 55th and University and has proudly housed students since 1960. Harry Weese of the architectural firm Harry Weese & Associates designed it at a cost of $2,400,000.

The dorm, which is ten stories high and can house 250 students, is named after Stanley R. Pierce, a former UChicago Maroons fullback who went on to become a broker and gift the University $800,000.

The Breezeway greets guests as they enter. Pierce students often play ping-pong, pool, fooseball, or watch TV down here (when they're not doing homework, of course.) 

Floors 3 and 4 of Pierce are Tufts House. This year, Tufts won Sports Frolic, Pierce's annual inter-house sports competition held in Henry Crown.

Pierce lounges are a central part of House culture as students often hang in them or walk through on the way to the elevators.

Pierce Houses are known to engage in some (friendly) competition. Here, Tufts house shows off on a lounge poster.

Residents also often play Smash on Nintendo, sometimes for hours on end!

Floors 5 and 6 of Pierce are Henderson House. This year, Henderson had a unique mustache theme on its walls.

More house pride found on the walls of Pierce! Next year, the Hendus will join Tufts in New Grad.

Thompson House lives on floors 7 and 8. This year, they had a record theme on their walls.

Students often work in the lounges, collaborating on problem sets and projects.  Next year, Thompson will be moved to I-House.

At the top of Pierce is Shorey House on floors 9 and 10. Quite fittingly, Shorey's motto is "Always on Top."

This year, Shorey's Theme was One Hit Wonders. Each student had a "One Hit Wonder" on their door, such as "Pop Lock and Drop It" or "Shake It."

Shorey house's mascot, Ferrari, a statue with a perplexing history. Earlier this year, second years David Goldfeld and Ricky Stewart gave a presentation on Ferrari's life. Now, Shoreyites are trying to figure out how to transport it to I-House for next year.

This 10th floor room is meant to be a double, but first year Mariah Raynor has it to herself. What beautiful decorating!

One half of a traditional Pierce double. Here, first year Maxine Frendel has outfitted it with photos, postcards, and mementos. 

The view from a 10th floor window. On a clear day, you can see all the way to Harper from the south side of the building and Downtown from the north side.

Back downstairs, on the deck outside the breezeway, first year Paloma Ocola reads for class in the sunshine. 

Students also relax on the deck during the day when it's nice out. Here, first year Dana Cohen catches some rays.

In the basement of Pierce is TANSTAAFL, a study room and lounge. TANSTAAFL  stands for "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch" and is a throwback to when the room was a student-run cafe.  

View of the building from the parking lot on Greenwood. Pierce, we will miss you!

Burton-Judson

This past weekend, our wonderful photographer, Allison Titus, documented what it is like to live at Burton-Judson Courts, one of the few dorms that gives you the authentic "Hogwarts feeling." 

Here is its exterior view, which faces the Midway Plaisance on 60th Street. The dorm is located on the corner of 60th and Ellis.

The main entry gate which students walk through to enter the building. The entrance is just steps away from the Artley D. Cathey Dining Commons and the South Campus Residence Hall. 

Students often hang in the courtyards when it's warm outside. The building cost $1,756,287 to complete when it was first constructed. 

Second courtyard. What a beautiful view!

Arches connect the two courtyards. The neo-Gothic structure was designed by the Philadelphia architectural firm Zantzinger, Borie and Mediary in 1931.

This door leads into Linn-Matthews house. BJ has six houses: Dodd-Mead, Linn-Matthews, Salisbury, Coulter, Chamberlin, and Vincent.

This is the basement lounge, otherwise known as the "Pit". A few people can sometimes be found hanging out down here, but people are usually in the basement to use the kitchen or do laundry.

The BJ kitchen, which can get pretty busy on weekends with special house dinners and study breaks or just students who like to cook!

Many students choose to study in BJ's study rooms when they're not exploring the surrounding area. This dorm is close to the Midway ice skating rink, Midway Market, AEPi, and Sig Ep.

The Upper Burton Lounge is open to all residents of BJ.

The Lower Burton Lounge is also open to all residents of BJ and is often busy with students doing homework or holding meetings.

View down the hallway through the dorm.

Here is one of BJ's double suites, which consist of two rooms.

View from the outer room looking into the inner room.

The residents of this double have chosen to keep both of their beds in one room and both of their desks in the other, although some convert their suites into two single rooms.

A look into a typical BJ single room. What lovely lighting!

This happens to be Tucker Max's former room. Tucker Max is a well-known blogger and writer.

Now it belongs to first-year Andrew Hungate. Other notable BJ former residents include Carl Sagan (famous astronomer), James Cronin (Nobel Prize winning physicist and UChicago faculty), and Evan Sharp (founder of Pinterest)

Master's Tea

Each Friday from 3:30 PM-5:30 PM, the Resident Masters of South Campus East, with help from a small staff of students, host a Master's Tea for student residents. I was invited behind the scenes for March 15, 2013's tea.

This is where the magic happens - apartment E137 of South Campus. Located in Cathey House, Resident Masters Lawrence (Larry) and Cathe McEnerney live here.

I came one day earlier on Thursday at 4 PM. The highlight for March 15 was a delicious Irish Coffee Cheesecake, made from scratch. Christina Ochoa had already begun preparing the crust for the cheesecake.

Cathe maintains an impressive kitchen cabinet, where she keeps the ingredients used in making the food for tea. She buys all the ingredients beforehand, so the student helpers only need to cook.

As Allison Demes prepares the filling for the cheesecake, she explains the basic structure of tea. The three student volunteers, who apply for the position in spring quarter, do most of the cooking.

As she pours out the cheesecake mixture, Allison continues her explanation. The schedule for the foods for tea is chosen beforehand by Cathe and the volunteers. Preparation always starts on Thursday for two hours.

There is never a dull moment when cooking for tea. The volunteers all become good friends, and converse about all kinds of things to pass the time while cooking.

Christina and Cathe look over the recipe for the cheesecake. Cathe collects the recipes from magazines, websites, and cookbooks into her own recipe book. This cheesecake recipe is a conglomeration of several past recipes.

The apartment is filled with inspirational and uplifting messages like these, which makes it a very pleasant and happy place.

Christina takes out the first baked cheesecake. There were a total of five cheesecakes prepared for the tea on Friday dude to its popularity. At 6 PM, Christina and Allison put away the cheesecakes and go home.

When I came in Friday morning at 10 AM, Esteban Valencia, the third member of the cooking team, had already prepared a good number of cookies.

This Friday, Esteban has the morning shift all by himself. All the shifts are staggered so the work is spread evenly. Esteban's focus is on making shamrock cookies.

Unlike the cheesecakes, the shamrock cookie dough was premade. Master's Tea always has a mix of homemade and partially premade foods.

Esteban prepares the cookies by glazing them and affixing St. Patrick's Day themed green sprinkles on top.

Preparation takes a total of five hours for each tea. Two hours on Thursday, two hours Friday morning, and one hour right before tea starts.

Esteban ends up making a total of around 144 cookies. According to Cathe, on a slow day, they get 60-80 people. However, they always prepare for a busy day, which usually have around 120 people.

The hour before tea starts at 3:30 PM, the final preparations are made. Cathe usually makes a delicious batch of special drinks, such as this Leprechaun Lemonade.

All the food, including this Italian Soda Bread, is prepared to be both pleasing to both the mouth and the eyes.

Years of experience have taught Cathe and their helpers how to ideally prepare the food. Allison lays down a fine layer of cocoa powder onto the cheesecake using a strainer.

Allison and the other volunteers treat all the food with care during preparation.

The cheesecake is topped off with a dollop of whipped cream and arranged on the table.

There is always hot water (for making tea with teabags supplied by Larry and Cathe), iced water, and usually a special drink. Past special drinks have been ranged from spiced cider to fruity punch mixes.

Before everything is ready to be served, Allison creates a menu for people to know what is being served, since no one is told what is being prepared beforehand.

The full arrangement of foods is placed on the dining room table with themed tablecloth and decorations, plates and napkins, and utensils.

Allison, Christina, Esteban, and Cathe pose for a quick picture before opening 

In the spirit of fun and St. Patrick's Day, the three student helpers show off the food they worked hard to make.

During tea, Larry always engages in intellectual conversation with students on a variety of subjects, ranging from literature to current events to the University itself.

Christina puts down a few more pieces of cheesecake to replace ones that are eaten. The student helpers have to replace the food every so often.

Resident Master's Tea attracts a lot of people. There are usually groups of people who stay around to talk, but since this Tea was during finals week, most people didn't stay for long.

Throughout the afternoon, as dishes are done being used, the volunteers clean the dishes as they come. This prevents a surge of cleaning at the end of the evening.

As 5:30 rolls around, people start to clear out. An empty table is a sign that the food was well-received, as was the case with this study break. Allison, Christina, Esteban, and Cathe clean up, and have a few days of rest before they need to start working on the next study break.