This past Rose Cafe was by far one of my favorites. Professor Blalock started out by giving us all a brief history of West Campus. There were several points that stood out to me. One was that the landscaping of West Campus was never completed, due to the economic situation at the time (Rose, the last of the houses built, was completed right before the recent recession). I actually had never noticed the lack of landscaping on West Campus, but now that I know about it, it is immediately noticeable. For instance, the lawn between Rose and Bethe always seems to be in a horrible state, and there are very little flowers, trees, or benches in the area. Another thing that stood out to me was the naming of the houses. Cornell apparently kept the names of the five houses on West Campus very secret during construction, referring to them only as “House 1,” “House 2,” etc. As Rose was the last of the houses to be completed, it was referred to as “House 5.” Even to this day, there are still things at Rose that are labeled “House 5.” Professor Blalock gave the example of shovels. The example that I noticed was the printer in the computer room in Rose Main, before the current card-scanning printing system was implemented. Back then, you had to select the specific printer that you wanted to print from. I had always wondered why the printer at Rose was not called something like “Flora Rose House,” but instead “house 5” (Last I checked, they still have the old sign up in the computer room on how to print from there, and it says to select the “house 5” printer, so you can go check this out for yourself if you want). Now I know why the printer was named as it was.

The second part of the Cafe was even more exciting: getting to see some of the secrets to West Campus in person. While I had already seen the War Memorial Room before, the tunnels were completely new to me. We started out by heading over to Becker, where we entered a tunnel behind their dining hall kitchen. We got to see the back entrance to that kitchen, as well as the food storage room for Becker’s dining hall, the room that the facilities staff has their meetings in, and the Becker loading dock–which is used by both Becker and Rose. We then followed a tunnel, passing through two elevators, to get back to Rose. The whole thing was super fascinating, and a bit disorienting. If Professor Blalock had not specifically announced where we were in relation to the structures on the surface, I would not have known where I was. At one point, we passed another elevator, and I remember that one of the other students asked Professor Blalock where that elevator went to. It was the main elevator in Rose! Professor Blalock also said, when we were by the first elevator that we went through, that we were right underneath his apartment. Everything just seemed so different underground, that I had a hard time figuring out where I was at any given moment. So, a warning to anyone who wants to check out the tunnels–it seems like it would be pretty easy to get lost in them. Furthermore, while it is fairly easy for someone who lives in Flora Rose House to access the tunnels–all you have to do is get into the Rose Main elevator and press “B”–it is much harder to get out. Apparently we do not have access to call the elevator from the tunnels. This means that, while you can take the elevator down into the tunnels, you cannot take it back out. Therefore the only way to exit the tunnels is through an exit outside, such as the loading dock by Becker (Also, once you enter the loading dock, you can no longer get back into the tunnels, as the doors into the tunnels all have card scanners on them–as well as no-prop alarms, apparently). So if you do decide to venture into the tunnels, make sure you can get back out!