This story was updated on April 12th 2023 at 02:30 p.m.
Hundreds of students will be forced to move out of the 301 Residence Hall and students will receive their temporary relocations by Wednesday morning, according to a university email. All dorm residents are set to be relocated to either vacant New School residences, off-campus residence halls or hotel rooms secured by the university.
Residents were informed about the relocation at 9:08 p.m. Tuesday via an email sent by the Director of Housing and Residential Education Brenda Cruz. The exact cause of relocation is yet to be disclosed, but Cruz noted issues with gas lines in the building, which has a total capacity of 631 students. Con Edison could not be immediately reached for comment but Cruz said the building is safe and repairs to its gas lines will be underway throughout the week. The 301 building will “not have heat or hot water for at least seven days,” but Cruz did not specify when residents will be able to return to the dorm.
If students need to retrieve belongings, they must sign in and out of the building with the Campus Safety Officers at the front desk, Cruz said in the email.
Those who wish to find alternative housing arrangements are asked to fill out a google form informing the university.
“We find out tomorrow. It’s either a hotel, a Stuy dorm which are sometimes worse than ours, and [any remaining] Kerrey dorms,” said Wilder Grimes, a 301 resident and a journalism and design major at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts.
The notice of removal came after a flurry of emails from various 301 administrators. 301 residents were first told that dryers in the laundry room would be out of service until 2:00 p.m. and were then informed they’d have no hot water for the day. A later email then finally notified residents of their forced relocation after Con Edison alerted the university that the heat and hot water services will be down for the next week.
The latest email addressed to residents stated that: “In order to ensure [residents] still have access to hot water tonight, [The New School] have arranged for residents to use facilities among various spaces at Stuy Park, Loeb Hall, Kerrey Hall, and 20th St. Residence.”
The mass student relocation is happening 10 days after a fire and flooding incident in the 301 building, which had already caused some students to be forced to move. “We moved out on April 3 [due to flooding], and then I moved back to my dorm on April 5,” Skyler Martin, a journalism and design major at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts said. “I’m not excited to move out again.”
301 is the newest dorm building at The New School, yet student evacuation and relocations at the residence hall are not particular to this semester. On October 11, 2022 half a dozen students were “forced to evacuate their dorm rooms at the 301 Residence Hall” following an HVAC pipe burst on the third floor. They were relocated to Loeb Hall.
Construction of the dorms had finished just a year earlier. The academic year rate for a double room at 301 currently costs $22,450 per student.
“It’s kind of ridiculous how much we pay to live here and the fact that this is happening,” Caroline Capuano, a journalism and design major said. “For now I’m just gonna have to pack a bag and hope.”
This is a developing story, as more information is available The New School Free Press will provide updates.
Additional reporting by Caidin Ferrigno
Correction: A previous version of this article stated an incorrect time of resident relocation from the 301 building. This article was updated with accurate details of temporary resident relocations from the 301 building, which is that students would be notified by Wednesday morning according to an email sent by the university.