John Jay Hall

Dormitory at Columbia University

John Jay Hall is a 15 story building located on the southeastern extremity of the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in New York City, on the northwestern corner of 114th St. and Amsterdam Avenue. Named for Founding Father, The Federalist Papers author, diplomat, and first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Jay (Class of 1764), it was among the last buildings designed by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, which had provided Columbia's original Morningside Heights campus plan, and was finished in 1927. The building includes freshman housing for students of Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science; John Jay Dining Hall, the university's primary undergraduate dining facility; JJ's Place, an underground student quick service restaurant; the university's health services center; and an elegant wood paneled lounge. Among its most prominent residents was the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. Unlike Carman Hall, the other exclusively freshman dormitory at Columbia, in which rooms are double occupancy and arranged in clusters of two around a common bathroom as a suite, John Jay Hall's accommodations consist primarily of single rooms along narrow corridors, generally with three double occupancy rooms per floor. Other dormitories housing undergraduate freshmen (but not exclusively so) include Wallach Hall, Hartley Hall, and Furnald Hall.

Following the First World War, significantly expanded enrollment at Columbia, combined with skyrocketing rents in Morningside Heights, prompted the construction of new dormitories at Columbia. Such a pressing need required a substantial expansion in housing space, and John Jay, the newest building for Columbia students, was built to nearly double the height of preexisting dormitories. John Jay Hall was notably distinct from its institutional contemporaries on Morningside Heights. Johnson (now Wien) and Hewitt Halls were built to house female Columbia graduate students and Barnard College undergraduates, respectively. Both employed lighter wood finishing and "early American" neo colonial architecture, thought to reflect the comfortable, domestic environment women ought to be exposed to. In contrast, John Jay Hall featured dark wooden ceiling beams and panelling, as well as other details thought to render it a more "masculine" structure. John Jay also came to house dances, alumni receptions, and the holiday Yule Log lighting ceremony. The first residents of what the New York Times had deemed the "Skyscraper Dorm", however, were agitated by its unreliable elevator service. Their irritation was expressed in a Times story headlined "Stair climbing Stirs Columbia Students". Graffiti on one elevator noted "a fellow dropped dead from old age waiting for this elevator". Elevator service in the building remains faulty to this day.

During the Second World War, John Jay served as quarters for U. S. Navy midshipmen and was run, for training purposes, as if it were a naval ship, referred to as the "USS John Jay". When midshipman desired to enter the building, he would have to say to their superiors "request your permission to come aboard, sir".

John Jay Hall was the site of violent anti Vietnam War protest led by the vice chairman of the Columbia University Chapter of the SDS, Ted Gold. Over 300 protesters followed Gold into the lobby of John Jay, where they confronted the recruiting efforts the U. S. Marines had mounted there. After the protesters came under attack by right wing students, Gold urged a retreat in order to avoid further conflict. After regrouping at the West End bar near campus, sociology professor and SDS professor Vernon Dibble invoked the skirmish inside the building to rally the dejected students. "You let them push you out of John Jay Hall today. You have to go back there again tomorrow to keep your credibility as a radical student group," he insisted. The scuffle in John Jay Hall induced university President Grayson L. Kirk to issue a statement of new school policy: "Picketing or demonstrations may not be conducted within any University Building." Nevertheless, the 1967 events in John Jay were merely the precursor to the much larger crisis surrounding the protests of 1968, in which many other buildings, notably Hamilton Hall, were occupied by striking students.

In March 2022, the student lounge of John Jay was renamed after Walter and Shirley Wang, son and daughter in law of Taiwanese business magnate Wang Yung ching, following the two's $10 million donation to improve undergraduate social spaces on campus.