General Studies Lounge - ARCHIVE 2006-2011

Bean Town

By TED BOTHA
Published: October 24, 2008

SOUTHSIDE COFFEE could hardly be more obscure. It sits on a corner of a quiet street in what is called the South Slope in Brooklyn, and at first it looks like any other shop with the word “coffee” slapped on the awning: A bunch of bikes are chained outside, several customers sit at tables on the sidewalk, and inside people are hunched behind their laptops.

Joshua Sidis is the only barista this Saturday morning. Once a drink is ordered, he flicks the doser below the bean hopper several times until the scoop is full. Then he presses down the grounds with a tamper, fits the doser into the Marzocco espresso machine and lets the water seep through the grounds into a demitasse.

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For more coverage on coffee here at gslounge.com check out our list of great places to drink espresso and our guide to creating and enjoying great espresso.

The CUArts Ticket and Information Center in Lerner launching this January is just the beginning! We here at The Arts Initiative are committed to creating new ways for students to connect to New York City's vast wealth of arts and culture. Our goal is that by 2009, by enrolling at Columbia and Barnard students. you will find yourselves fully enrolled in the artistic and cultural life of the city. We hope to build convenient and affordable access to a wide-range of programs and events as well as easily accessible material to link your academic work to performances/events around town. We're also working on a funding program/tool to make it easier for your professors to incorporate NYC arts into the syllabus.

We're well on our way with the initial planning, but we really need student input. YOUR input.

We would like your help in finding students to sit on an advisory group that will give us feedback on the programming we're creating. We're preferably looking for first-years, sophomores and juniors who have a strong interest in the arts and will be here to see and guide the fruits of their labor. The advisory groups will be two separate committees (one faculty, one student) of about 8 - 12 members each, and members will be required to attend three meetings between now and March in which:

1. We'll lay out the 2009 idea and solicit responses and fresh ideas
2. We'll present a version incorporating suggestions from both groups and get further comment and
3. Give a final presentation of the plan.

Interested students should send a cover letter, resume and at least one faculty recommendation to myself, Chad Miller, at cam2015@columbia.edu. Deadline for submissions is Monday, November 26th. We're looking forward to hearing your feedback, so join us.