Watson Hall             

Watson Labs was originally owned by IBM, and named for its founder T.J. Watson. When IBM moved their T.J. Watson Research Center out of the city to Yorktown Heights, New York, they left the building to Columbia University. The name, and much of the industrial-strength furniture (and "Property of IBM" tags) was left. Over the years, the building came to be called "Watson Hall" due to the lack of laboratories.

In 1970 Columbia's Computer Center staff moved from a small building on 116th Street (now Casa Hispanica) to the Watson building. In 1973 they were renamed the Columbia University Center for Computing Activities (CUCCA). In the early 1990s, CUCCA split up into Academic Information Systems (AcIS) and Administrative Information Systems (AIS). A few years later, when Columbia considered tearing down Watson to put up a dorm, AIS moved out, leaving the lower floors empty. After a year or so like this the rumors died down, and the School of Visual Arts moved in.

Thus, the top four floors (6-9) are AcIS, the middle four (2-5) are Arts, and the first floor is shared.

The ninth floor (aka "penthouse") is occupied by the Kermit Distribution group and some Electronic Classrooms (ATG) staff. The eighth floor holds the Academic Technologies Group (ATG). The seventh floor has the Computing Systems group, and AcIS' Research and Development group. The sixth floor is occupied by AcIS' Deputy Vice President, some of his staff, the Networks group, and some Kermit staff.

The Visual Arts floors are filled with studios. The second floor also holds mailboxes for the Art students. It sounds like the heavy woodworking equipment is on 2 as well. Somewhere is an office for their Dean. The Coke machine is on the third floor.

On the first floor is our lobby, with a ColumbiaNet station. Just off that is an art gallery/lecture room. In the back is our Network Operations Center.

Last modified Jun 10 2002