Office of Public Information and Communications Columbia University New York, N.Y. 10027 (212) 854-5573
For the past 16 years, students at Columbia University have produced The Columbia Guide to New York, mainly for themselves. Now they have published a new edition that is being distributed for the first time on 16 other campuses in the area, including Fordham and New York universities, as the new school year begins.
They hope it will become the ultimate guide to city living, for everyone.
The off-campus edition, titled Inside New York, the same book with a different name, has been sold to NYU's arts and sciences, dental and education schools; Fordham and New York law schools; Cooper Union; the School of Visual Arts; Manhattan School of Music; Mannes College of Music; Union and Jewish and General theological seminaries; the College of New Rochelle, and Baruch College of the City University of New York. Pace and Adelphi universities have also ordered copies.
Most of the schools, like Columbia, will give the 248-page, large-format, glossy paperback to incoming students as part of their orientation programs. Inside New York will have a larger circulation than the Columbia edition.
"It's the only book written by and for students that tells them about actually living in New York," Bob Welsh, a Columbia College junior, said in a recent interview. Mr. Welsh is co-publisher of the book with Meredith Safran, a senior, who added:
"It's easy to get a guide to the monuments, for a tourist, for a weekend. It's harder to find a guide to day-to-day living in the city that tells you where to get good food and find good shopping."
Special sections advise on how to find a job and an apartment, where to look for bargains and how to volunteer for a cause. It tells where to find the best coffee, best bagel and best pizza in 21 neighborhoods and boroughs.
Thirty tireless Columbia students, chosen for their knowledge of the city, compiled the guide, largely by walking the city streets and finding good, affordable restaurants, entertainment, cultural life and other attractions. Each neighborhood section has a detailed street map and a history, plus a "cheap thrills" list, which on the Lower East Side, for example, includes a tour of a matzo factory, an open mike night, a place with free wine samples and another with free live jazz. "A lot of walking went into making the book," said Mr.Welsh.
Laura Williams, a graduate student who helped write the piece on bargain shopping, advises newcomers: "Department store sales are for amateurs."
Although the main audience has been students, said cartographer Andrea Archer, "the book is by students but for everyone."
The guide lists a range of restaurants with meals from $5 to $55.
"We focus on things that happen for free on a regular basis, like readings in libraries and bookstores and concerts and performances," said Mr.Welsh.
Ms. Safran said: "The book is useful for students, but it extends far beyond. It's not just rock clubs and cheap food. There's a mixture for everyone."
Distribution of the guide at other schools is the start of an effort to give it a full metropolitan voice, a move led by last year's publisher, Brendan James Killackey, who first organized it by neighborhoods and strengthened outer-borough coverage. Publishers Welsh and Safran hope that next year's book will have contributions by many students at other schools in all phases - writing, production and distribution.
The Columbia publishers will distribute 20,000 books, about 9,000 on the Columbia campus and 11,000 mainly to the other schools. The guide has grown by almost 90 pages from last year's 160. Its cover price is $9.95.
Publishing the guide is an activity of Columbia Student Enterprises, part of the University's Center for Career Services.
A 20-year-old history major, Mr. Welsh was born and raised in Allentown, Pa., and though his mother is from Brooklyn and she often took him sightseeing in Manhattan as a child, he says "I really didn't know a thing about New York when I arrived at Columbia two years ago. Now, although I know more from having read the entire guide four times, I want to use it."
Ms. Safran, 20, is majoring in anthropology and ancient studies. She is a native New Yorker who left for Boston with her family in 1980 and has been trying to persuade her parents to move back ever since. She has used the guide.
"I took my family on a tour, an extravaganza, not long ago," she said. "We started in Chinatown with dim sum, then took the subway to Brooklyn to the botanical gardens and came back to Eighth Avenue and 22nd Street (Big Cup) for the best coffee in Chelsea. After a movie, we went to a Moroccan restaurant (Cafe Fes) in the Village, where we all had the best meal we'd ever had."
The Columbia Guide to New York, 1996-97 or Inside New York 1996-97 can be obtained by calling 212-854-2804.
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