Pace University built its new building, 15 Beekman, located in the heart of the Financial District, to replace its oldest dorm Maria’s Towers, and to “redefine their downtown campus.” 15 Beekman was announced on March 31, 2023 and finished construction in August of 2023, just before students arrived for a new program called Pace Academy. Within the new Beekman building, there is a new library, dining hall, outdoor terrace on the 6th floor, and classrooms, as well as student spaces that include a brand-new Bianco Room, new space for the Seidenberg School, new cutting-edge technology, a new home for the Learning Commons, and even a coffee bar and lounge in the lobby. Along with education and classroom spaces, there is also a kitchen space and gym overlooking the city from 25 floors up. 26 floors total, with 12 reserved as residential floors that house over 400 students and the other 14 used as recreational and educational spaces for students. With new and bigger spaces and lounges for students, 15 Beekman has become a popular hub for students on the entirety of the New York City campus.
The only way I can personally describe my time living in 15 Beekman as a resident is unique. I like how close everything is to my building, both internally and externally. Internally, 15 Beekman has a marketplace and Starbucks in the lobby where students can get meals, snacks, drinks, toiletries, and even specific groceries. Classes are also on floors ten and below, including three floors dedicated to the Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. Along with this, there is a Learning Commons, which is an academic resource of tutors to help in subjects like writing, computing, language, and even study skills. There is a library when you need a nice place to study or read, a gym, a kitchen, study spaces, and even a common area on the 25th floor, which is my personal favorite. I’ve had study dates with my friends, baked cinnamon rolls and pumpkin pies, and even played board games such as Uno and Sorry. Externally, 15 Beekman is extremely close to the Pace main building, great food spots such as The Melt Shop and Joe’s Pizza, and also fun places to hang out with friends. We are extremely close to Target, a place where I and other students buy most of their essentials, and Seaport, which is a common hang-out place for Pace students. Despite popular belief, 15 Beekman does have positive and good aspects to living under its roof. However, there are definitely cons, and personally, I feel as though they 100% outweigh the pros.
From disorganization, unfinished elevators, faulty locks on doors, and how many people you live with — it’s extremely hard to live in 15 Beekman. My least favorite part is probably the suites. The suites were originally described as “most students (about two-thirds) will be assigned to double rooms,” which wasn’t the case. Firstly, I think having over six people in a suite is a little excessive, especially with the sizes of the 15 Beekman dorms. I live with eight other people, with three triples and two bathrooms, and due to the size of the suite, it’s almost always a struggle. Even though I think nine people is hard, the maximum is 11, with two bathrooms. The triples also have a set of bunk beds, while the quads have two sets of bunk beds. However, rooms in the suites had pre-assigned bed arrangements. Instead of having two people sleep on top of one another in bunk beds like five-year-olds, the triples should be doubles with two single-sized beds. When I first moved in I was shocked by the size, mostly because the building was not advertised this way. My eight other roommates and I have also had some very serious troubles with the locks on our doors. They hadn’t worked properly in the four weeks I’ve lived here and have caused pretty serious situations on our floor. This made my suitemates and I feel extremely unsafe and unprotected, and yet when we went to security about our serious problem, nothing was fixed for weeks. It took weeks for them to even get back to us, and even then it took several of our parents calling them before any actions were really taken. Lastly, the elevators are one of the biggest enemies I’ve acquired while living in 15 Beekman. There are only three, extremely faulty, elevators that lead to the residence floors while there are six that are properly operating and lead students to the floors of classrooms. It’s extremely difficult to get to classes on time due to the overwhelming number of students who are trying to use the three elevators to just get to the lobby all at once. For a class that’s in a building, a three-minute walk away, I leave 15 Beekman thirty minutes early.
In order to get a better and more specific perspective on how people feel about living in 15 Beekman, I interviewed four people: two people who live in the building, someone I live with, and someone who works in the Learning Commons located on the 7th floor. The first person I interviewed was Steven Cook, a freshman, who hasn’t yet declared a major and lives on the 19th floor in a nine-person suite of 15 Beekman. When I asked him why he was living in the new building of 15 Beekman he simply explained to me, “Honestly, they just placed me here and that’s how it came to be. Apart from saying he “likes how it feels like a big community because we are all so close to each other. This makes it super easy to hang out with your friends.” When being asked about what he lives about living in 15 Beekman, Cook had some strong words about what he doesn’t like. He simply told me, “I don’t like how crowded it is because it feels like we don’t have any space to ourselves and there is no privacy in the suites or anything. Nine people sharing two bathrooms – it’s not enough, the scheduling is hard, the floor’s always wet. You always feel like there are people there.” Including this statement, Cook said that 15 Beekman could make plenty of improvements to better their building including that, “they could get in the maintenance request in faster because I know some people who didn’t have a properly working door; which is unsafe and really affected them because it caused boys to break into their dorm — I think that that is just disgusting to even let happen. I also think that fewer people living together would be more beneficial, as there are other buildings with more space.” While Cook had nice things to say about his living situation in 15 Beekman, I think his quotes show how deeply he feels about the negative aspects of being a resident at 15 Beekman.
Sasha Arzu, a freshman and biology major on the pre-med track, who also happens to be my suitemate on the 17th floor, also had the same reason to like living in 15 Beekman stating, “I like how easy it is to make friends, I guess. You have a lot of people close to you. It makes it easier to build a community, depending on who you are surrounded by.” However, Arzu also explained to me that, “her and her roommates’ first choice was living in 15 Beekman.” She, as most other people do, dislikes the size of the suites, but she was also very passionate when explaining what improvements could be made to the building, “I think that security needs to be improved; they are sometimes very rude and not very responsive. Like, we had to place a trash can outside of our hall door, and someone wrote a sticky note trying to communicate with us and ask security to stop moving it since people were getting locked out of their floors. However, security said they have to remove the trash can for “safety reasons” when they should just open the door — and that doesn’t make sense.”
The last person I interviewed about living in 15 Beekman is my friend Riley Weeks who is also a freshman and is a computer science major living on the 14th or the first floor for residencies. Weeks’ perspective and reason for living in 15 Beekman were unique as he found out about the building in their advertisement. Weeks told me, “I am currently living in 15 Beekman because building up to it, there were a lot of high expectations and love being shown towards the building since it was new. That made a lot of people [including myself] feel lucky to be able to live in it.” In direct correlation to this, Weeks said he disliked, “I really, really, dislike how small the rooms are. Putting a ton of students in suites with tiny rooms containing mostly bunk beds was not the best choice. Also having up to 11 people in one suite wasn’t a great choice because there are bound to be a lot more issues than if it was a regular dorm with two to four people! I really dislike the catfishing that was involved with 15 Beekman dorms, because they are nothing like the drawings/pictures we saw before. Also, why do some people get bigger rooms and suites when we are all paying the same price?” His frustration was further explained through his thoughts on possible improvements that could be made in 15 Beekman, “As far as improvements, I would’ve just said preparedness. A lot of things were and have been unprepared with the process of 15 Beekman becoming a residential building, classroom building, and much more. It’s very new though, so not many things specifically need to be improved, but the suite style of living isn’t for most people!” Other than this, Weeks positively talked about his pros about the building stating, “I like the amenities in 15 Beekman! The kitchen area on the 25th floor is so nice, the classes are amazing, and it’s just all around very new and fresh!
The last interview I conducted was important for getting multiple perspectives and points of view on 15 Beekman. This person, who has asked to remain anonymous, is someone who works in the Learning Commons, a tutoring center and workspace for students who may need help on and in a wide range of different subjects and majors. The very first thing I wanted to know was simply how this person would describe working in the Learning Commons of 15 Beekman, in which they replied, “Working in 15 Bekman has definitely been a different experience. It is more open space, one that actually has windows (so that’s exciting). However, my one major complaint is the lack of outlets within the space. I’ve also noticed this in other common areas around 15 Beekman. It is really inconvenient when there are a lot of students who need to use their laptops, especially for work, and the number of outlets is rather limited.” Said interviewee also brought up the outlets when discussing their pros and cons of working in the Learning Commons saying, “Some pros are having more light, the Starbucks is pretty, there is more space and more study areas. Some cons are the lack of outlets, way too gray with literally no design whatsoever.” Lastly, this person expressed their wants for improvements within their workspace, “I definitely think there could be more effective use of the spaces. I mean, the floors are pretty decently sized but only one side of the floor is really optimized for student-related spaces!” Through interviewing a person who worked in 15 Beekman while also interviewing people who live there, I felt as though it created a better and more unbiased dynamic when looking over what and why people like and dislike the building 15 Beekman in general.
I’ve realized that most people are on common ground and agree on both the benefits and downsides of 15 Beekman. Most people, including myself, agree with the problem of the sizing and how many people are in each of the suites. There was also agreement on how it can feel easier to make friends due to how many people you live and see around constantly. I found it extremely interesting to get a different perspective from someone who only works and doesn’t reside in 15 Beekman. All in all, it’s clear that the new building we all know as 15 Beekman has caused widespread of diverse and strong opinions. Whether good or bad, 15 Beekman is a building that has caused conversation.