So.. In my travels to Brody land, I realized Brody isn’t actually a hall… and the people that live there kind of get angry when you ask that. It must be some kind of a brotherhood or something. Or like fight club. I don’t really care. But this was interesting to me. “Brody” is actually the neighborhood, just like Akers, Holmes, and Hubbard form the “East Neighborhood” there is a “Brody Neighborhood.” Rather than do all six of the subsections separately, because I don’t really feel like doing that, I’ll generalize all six of them and continue to call them “Brody” For reference, however, the names of the six halls are: Armstrong, Bailey, Bryan, Butterfield, Emmons, Rather.
There’s nothing special about any of these halls. I even looked at each website, and the best thing any of them could boast about were that they all have community bathrooms, and one of them is alcohol free. Woop-dee-doo. One of them also has a second floor honors hall. But again, woop-dee-doo. Everyone always talks about how great Brody is, but all the halls are bland… And parking is terribly organized… It’d be the one place on campus where I’d be fuming if I got a parking ticket.
So, what then is everyone’s fascination with this Brody? The café. Duh. Apparently, there is some great appeal in going to a place that is absolutely nowhere near your last class. Makes sense to me.
You see, last year, they started redoing the middle of brody place, and made it into an enormous Café, with the intent of adding all kinds of other stuff into that massive building. It’s not all done, but going in there is very aesthetically pleasing. The exterior is phenomenal, the circular study room thing is amazing. They definitely made the building spectacular. And that spectacular appearance definitely carried into the café. The things inside of that café, just in the structure, are amazing. When I took my sister and niece to this café, they were both in awe of the interior, and exterior (it almost made up for there being no logical place to park, making a small walk to get there).
And the Café itself… This café is the biggest on campus, and actually rivals Sny-Phi for quality…. But where the Brody café surpasses all others in its quantity. Now, trust me… I’ll take quality of food over quantity every single day of the week, but if it’s all decent, and there is a metric crap ton of choices inside of it, there’s no reason to not love it. I’m personally of the opinion that the café itself would have better food if there weren’t all the different stations, as it lets them put more focus on the good ones, but alas, it isn’t my decision for some reason.
The café boasts an impressive number of nine or ten stations, AND it’s own bathroom inside of it… Believe it or not, that’s not common.. Again, stupid.. but moving on..
The stations vary from the token sub/pizza station (surprised?), a lengthy salad bar, some kind of Asian food that scares me to even try, a station that does a lot of pasta stuff (Chicken, spaghetti, lasagna… Etc, etc, etc), the newest token among the cafés: a hamburger joint, ‘Homestyle,’ which basically has a mini holiday dinner at one station (Rotisserie chicken, or Turkey, Potatoes, Gravy, stuffing, and other various fixings), a sushi center, where they make sushi as you request it, how you request it (which I find disgusting, not that they cater it to you.. just the concept of sushi.. ew), and little Mexican joint, with enchiladas, tacos, and Quesadillas (Don’t forget to pronounce the two Ls, they love it… Trust me.)
But, according to someone who I don’t know if they have any authority, but they work with them on this issue, the café is some how failing…. Well no shit it’s failing, it’s in the middle of nowhere… Sure, a bunch of people are requesting to live in those 6 halls nowadays, but really? They’re going to cater to those six halls enormously? I’ve gone there twice this semester. Only twice. I’m going again tomorrow, and that’s only because my sister is coming to pick me up, and I don’t want to subject her to the shit food at Akers.
Peace!
I live in the Brody Neighborhood, and I must say that it is a pretty nice place to be located as a freshmen. The quality of the dorms is nothing spectacular but neither are they anywhere else on campus, plus we have the biggest rooms. I do love the community bathrooms that you noted earlier. I am right across from the bathroom so it is as though I have my own personal bathroom which gets cleaned professionally every day with 8 different toilets, 8 different showers, and 8 different sinks to choose from. My one complaint is that there is only 1 urinal in these bathrooms, and there is also only one hand dryer as well. The single hand dryers causes a few problems. The most obvious being that it only lets one person dry their hands at a time and that the dryer is not powerful either so it causes a line at the dryer occasionally, which can cause the first person drying their hands to feel rushed and leave prematurely while their hands may still be damp. No one likes to have damp hands when leaving the bathroom because it not only feels gross but also looks odd. Also, Brody is nice for freshmen because the majority of it is freshmen. Actually the dorm I live in (Armstrong) is all freshmen other than the R.M.’s and it is nice to be with people of your same age bracket.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Cafeteria, you definitely hit it right on the money. I do love the giant cafeteria and all of its unnecessary amounts of food. That may be the main factor for my love of the Brody Neighborhood. Overall, I do have to say this is a good examine of the dorms because they are definitely not the most visually appealing but I do like it here and it is not too bad.
Also, I gotta give a shoutout to the fella’s at 3A Armstrong!
-Tom Walbrun