Pforzheimer House

Pfoho may be far from the river, but residents rally around their insurmountable house pride and insist that being quadded is by no means a bad thing, especially when you live in Pfoho. After all, no other house shares the honor of having a silent first letter, and Pfoho's gratuitous "p" preceding the underrated independent letter "f" plagues the campus (Pfuck the river!). First used as a Radcliffe dorm, Pfoho has a number of three-paneled mirrors built into the hallways, supposedly used by the ladies to check themselves out before dates. While the students were historically viewed as a studious, sometimes solitary, largely pre-med crowd, the current residents have turned some of the once-quiet halls into lively corridors reminiscent of a gossipy, co-ed summer camp. Sophomores and juniors live in singles or small suites, while juniors and seniors live in "duplexes," two-floor suites with singles as large as 210 sq. ft., common rooms and bathrooms. A few suites in Holmes and Comstock wings have their own kitchenettes, though overcrowding may cause their removal, as was done in Wolbach, to residents' dismay. The quirk of the housing setup is that a choice cadre of overflow sophomores gets quadded from the Quad into Jordan J and K (91 and 93 Walker St.), a group of large, formerly run-down rooms now renovated into beauty.

Dining Hall & Facilities Pforzheimer's overarching cleanliness and order rules in the dining hall, which is spotless and well-lit. The hall is most notable for its bilevel construction; the tiny lovers' balcony provides the most romantically exhibitionist dining experience on campus. The space is used also for staging house spectacles and showing movies on a bona fide projector screen. The Pforzheimer "library" is more of a glorified study room with old sourcebooks and CUE guides than an actual repository for books; thesis writers and other pseudoworkers bury themselves in piles of books beneath the soft lamps at each shiny table. Yet, deep in the bowels of Holmes lurks a secret library of comfy couches and miscellaneous literature, including the pre-med's ideal collection of steamy romance novels and kiddy comics. Along with numerous study holes and multiple pianos, Pfoho has a few hidden kitchens, a computer room with color scanner, and the Holmes JCR, complete with TV/VCR, a Video Club offering an abyss of videos for check-out, ping-pong and foosball tables, as well as the efficiently-run Pfoho Grill. In the basement, a wellstocked weight room and a pool room are the sites of much gaming and training. Other facilities include a dark room, some practice rooms, and a recording studio. And the Masters are known to serve tasty ribs at their Open Houses. QUINCY House