In the spring of 2023, The New School announced that Stuyvesant Park Residence (Stuy) would close for the next academic year to undergo $30 million renovations after TNS bought the property for $124.5 million a year prior in the spring of 2022.
The building is now housing its first students back after the renovations, but students are still left wondering what changes were actually made over the year. According to Merrie Snead, a university spokesperson, Stuy dorms were supposed to see “upgraded mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, redesigned kitchens and bathrooms, and improved student amenities,” after the renovations.
Before the renovations, students had been reporting concerns with the dorm building since at least 2017. The Free Press has covered articles reflecting students’ concerns with rodents in dorm rooms, discolored water in sinks, and alleged mold.
Lara Randlesome, a first-year at Parsons School of Design, is a resident at Stuy and has run into several issues with her dorm. In the first few days of living in Stuy, “Our shower wall practically collapsed. I don’t know if it was a leak or something, but the corner of the wall just starts chipping and falling, and it looks moldy,” Randlesome said.
Maintenance took several days to fix the issues, but she said they had allegedly just painted over it. However, the issues did not stop there for Randelsome.
“The sink pipe burst, and there [was] water everywhere, there was a leak in our sink … and then our AC didn’t work for a while, but they fixed [it] in a few days. I have seen a few freaky-looking bugs, and I don’t really know what that’s about,” she said.
Although some Stuy residents have already been experiencing problems in-line with the building’s long-standing complaints from students, the TNS administration told the New School Free Press in a statement, “So far, we’ve received positive reviews. The difference between what the hall was, and what it is now, is drastic. It really is a brand new living environment.”
TNS used a general contractor group called Cross Management Company along with multiple design professionals and subcontractors for Stuy’s renovations. The Safety and Facilities Department of TNS oversaw the renovations with the help of consultants and design professionals, according to the university.
A first-year at Parsons, Dash Hamilton, is another student who has noticed the bug problem. “What are they called, cockroaches? The big motherfuckers. I’ve seen a couple [of] cockroaches in the drainages outside,” Hamilton said. Hamilton said he also had a pipe leak in his bathroom. Maintenance came in and fixed it the next day.
Security officer Guzman has worked at Stuy for over a decade. He said that the renovations had “brought in a very lively bunch of students here … not that the previous students were horrible, but clearly, the way the building was affecting them would affect the entire presence in the aura of the building.” Guzman said that the renovations feel like a new experience, and even though it’s the same building, he believes that it made “everything be a little more bright, more vibrant.”
“I don’t really have any complaints, except for the laundry kind of sucks,” Parsons first-year Kirby Cox said. “Machines are always broken … We’ve had to call maintenance a couple [of] times to fix the AC and the lights and stuff. But it hasn’t been bad.”
The university told the Free Press that the renovations are almost complete except for “a few minor items that we plan to address in the sub-cellar amenity area, but the project is substantially complete.”