If you are a romantic at heart and live in Blackstone, you’ve got it made. This building is the classic, old-style University dorm with an academic feel that you see in movies—complete with a fireplace beneath a crest, a grand piano, thick wooden doors with iron patterning, and an antique elevator.
Its small group of 80 residents lives on six floors sporting sets of suites, each with two spacious single bedrooms, one kitchen, and one bathroom. No two sets of suites are really alike on a given floor, adding to the vintage, hand-made appeal of this residence from another time.
Since this is an upperclassmen dorm, it offers a more mature, quiet atmosphere where the social life can be on residents’ own terms. It also has a lounge with a huge, brand-new flat-screen television donated by an alumnus.
About 10 minutes from campus, this dorm is located on what you could easily argue is one of Hyde Park’s best-looking blocks, on South Blackstone Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets. Several big-name professors live on this block, and if you live here, you may get to chat with them as they walk their dogs or garden in their front yard on Saturday mornings. Living at this location also provides easy access to the 57th Street restaurants and shops and close proximity to a #6 bus stop.
If you are not a romantic—or, quite simply, a Max P. type who prefers newness to aesthetics, this might not be the place for you. But otherwise, this is an ideal place for upperclassmen to live at the U of C.