Mark

Carmichael Towers: Putting the Fun in Functionality

Vanderbilt’s Carmichael Towers are located on West End Avenue in a part of campus that positions the buildings between numerous Greek houses and several construction zones (what’s being constructed?)  West End is easily the busiest street that borders Vanderbilt’s campus and Towers’ location on this major thoroughfare makes it a noisy place to live. Great descriptive writing!: Despite the sounds of revving engines, screeching brakes, emergency sirens, and occasional car wrecks, Towers is close to lots of major campus dining locations (like Rand and E. Bronson Ingram) and also a stone’s throw away from most main campus academic buildings.

I live in Carmichael Tower 4, the Tower furthest from main campus and closest to the Barnes and Noble bookstore on West End. Tower 4 is full of 6-person suites that are made up of two single bedrooms, a small double, and a bigger double with a dividing wall that goes halfway across the room and compartmentalizes the room into two separate living spaces. Each person is allocated their own closet, two sets of drawers, a desk, desk chair, and a bed. Each suite also comes equipped with a small kitchen area complete with an oven/stove, a sink, and refrigerator. A common living room is attached to the kitchen and the common room comes with a couch, a lounge chair, a coffee table, a kitchen table, and four table chairs. Each towers suite also features a full bathroom with two sinks, a shower, and a toilet for the 6 suitemates to share.

The basement of Towers 3 and 4 has a full laundry room, vending machines, and a Munchie Mart where students can get everything from frozen pizzas to deodorant to a dozen eggs to a fresh sub sandwich at the built in Rocket Subs. Because of the availability of food within the building, it is surprisingly easy to spend days on end in Towers without ever stepping foot outside.

From the third to the fourteenth floor of Towers, each floor has four separate suites. I live in one of the single bedrooms in my suite on the tenth floor with a window facing West End and a view of the Parthenon from my bed. Because Towers 3 and 4 are set to be demolished after the 2019 school year, students in these two buildings have taken it upon themselves to decorate their living spaces in ways that other students cannot. My suitemates and I have taken paint and Sharpie markers to our walls to personalize our living space and leave our marks on the walls before they are torn down.

On top of the artistic customization of the walls in Towers, the suites are seemingly made for groups of students to spend time, study, and socialize together. The common room allows for large groups of people to congregate to hang out together, and even the single bedrooms are large enough for a small group to get together and watch a movie, enjoy a beer, or cram for a test.   Overall, though Towers is by no means the nicest building on campus, its options for socialization and its proximity to main campus make it an attractive place to live.

 

View of the Parthenon from my room

 

 

Wall above my bed with some of my favorite lyrics written