Student-Subway ^alpha

Student housing on Loyola’s campus is about as diverse as the student body. With choices like suite style or community style, studio or apartment, and downtown or Roger’s Park there is bound to be something suited for everyone. I lived and worked in several different dorms at Loyola, but had the best experience, by far, during my semester at Baumhart Hall located on the downtown campus. This apartment style hi-rise, two blocks west of Michigan Avenue, offers more than the average undergrad could ever think to ask for. With two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a full kitchen in each unit, the building houses a full laundry facility, gym, chapel, lounge, cafeteria and mini market, a café, and a bookstore for all of your Loyola needs. Living downtown may create some worry about safety, but Loyola staffs a 24-hour security desk at the front door requiring all residents to swipe their ID’s and all guests to have their driver’s licenses scanned into the university computer system.

With quick access to the Chicago El stop, Water Tower mall, Go Roma Italian Restaurant (a downtown Loyola favorite!), and all that Chicago has to offer, this dorm provides a true “big city” living experience.

Loyola has made great strides in improving current housing and developing new spaces, like Baumhart Hall, in which students can live and learn.

No Location Has Been Related To This Article Yet.

I would like to dedicate this article to Kevin Rose, because without his persistence, I would never have taken the time to write this timeless piece. I graduated from Loyola University-Chicago in 2005, and I lived in the beautiful apartment style dorms known as Fairfield Hall or "West" during my sophomore year. This palace of a living arrangement provided me with a number of lasting memories, which I frequently refer to during each friendly gathering of Loyola alumni. I remember enduring the "Lottery" for sophomore year dorms during the end of my freshman year at Loyola. The Loyola administration shoved hundreds of angry, hung-over freshmen into a giant conference room in order to determine where everyone was supposed to live the following year. First of all, my roommate Lee and I could not choose between our friend Larry or John for our lucky third roommate. We ended up picking John, a shady fellow who disappeared after first semester, and to this day, we have never heard from him. Larry ended up being one of our best friends, so I guess we were wrong. Anyway, when Lee and I had our chance to pick, we chose "West," because it has a great location near the train, and everything seemed to be a bit more relaxed at this location. The building is not the most breathtaking structure, but the apartments themselves were roomy and provided us with ample space to put our giant computers, ridiculous beer signs, and useless cardboard cutouts of Junior Seau, which ended up out the window. After we chose our room, three of our friends were able to strong arm a helpless group of guys into giving up their apartment across the hall from us, which ended up being a great decision, as well as, almost got us booted from school. I loved my time at Loyola, and my year at "West" was awesome. We had friends over all the time, had parties in our rooms, had prank wars with our friends below us, and engaged in food fights involving three-man sling shots with the neighboring apartment. We had fun while doing well in school. I do not know what happened to John, but maybe someday we will find him.

No Location Has Been Related To This Article Yet.

It was a benefit I never would have realized. I thought I was lucky to be living in Simpson because it was brand new, we only shared a bathroom with our suitemates, and we all had Ethernet hook ups in the room. But still, still, there were times I longed for Mertz, with their two different dining halls, gourmet coffee bar, and, the crème de la crème, the view! In Simpson, the highest floor was 5 and the views were lovely. In Mertz though, 20 stories high, you could see all the way to Northwestern, and down to Navy Pier. Plus the room size was double. But you had community bathrooms! So all in all things seemed pretty even for the first few months of freshman year.

And then finals started. And I realized how lucky I was.

See it’s not that hard to walk down 5 flights of stairs. But forcing hundreds of 18 year olds to walk down 20? I guess that seems funny to people. Mertz friends started to show up for breakfast looking like they had been on a bender the night before. Not the case. The fire alarm had been pulled one, two, and sometimes three times a night. It got so bad that they would make everyone stand in the Chicago December cold while RA’s counted or accounted for every single person, and checked every single room. Meanwhile? We Simpsonians were all safely slumbering away.

My advice is stick with Simpson, although I hear Granada is beautiful, it opened after my time. Beware though, it’s a high rise also.

We did have one fire alarm during finals, but… there was an actual fire. That’s a topic for another time.

Loyola Residence Halls

No Location Has Been Related To This Article Yet.