All birthday parties need a cake and Columbia’s 250th Anniversary in 2003 was no different. Harlem native Patrick De’Shaun Dennis III, better known as Cake Man Raven, made a 13-foot-tall replica of Low Library in his signature flavor: red velvet. While this massive 3.5-ton cake was impressive, Cake Man Raven’s masterpiece was yet to come. […]
Tag: Low Library
The Low Library in Shanghai
Did you know that there was another Low Library in Shanghai? That this library was similarly made possible by a gift from Seth Low (and his brother)? And that it was also closely connected to Columbia? […]
Moonlight Inside the Library
In April 1897, the Spectator reported on the “two mysterious hemispheres” which had appeared in the entrance of the Library being built on Columbia’s soon-to-be new campus in Morningside Heights. First, the two halves were joined to form a globe. And then, this wooden sphere was hung from the ceiling and could cast a soft, […]
A Low Library What If
In the #WeMissLow series, we’ve talked about the Low Library building as a library, the home of the administration, a ceremonial gathering place, a film location, and even an athletics training facility. In this post, we offer a Low Library reimagined. […]
The Second Life of the Low Library Furniture
After the opening of South Hall (now known as Butler Library), Low Library was no longer the main library on campus. The reading room in the Rotunda was dismantled and the space was transformed into ceremonial space or used as a lecture hall, a function it serves to this day. But what happened to the […]