The Envoy

The Baker Building closed due to a gas leak at the adjacent station house on Sept. 23, setting off a chain of openings and closures of the building throughout the week.

Home and unifier of Hunter College’s Theater Department, the Baker Building is more than a place for classes. It hosts studios, rehearsal rooms, and performance spaces. However, due to the temporary discontinuation of the building’s use, theater students and faculty were left without a space for classes, clubs, or studying. 

A theater major who requested to remain anonymous highlighted that rehearsals for two shows, Kingdom and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, had to be canceled or relocated at the last minute to much smaller rooms, one of which did not have air conditioning while students practiced their choreography. This closure highlighted a general issue for them regarding Hunter’s campus.

“I’ve been mostly hanging out in the Baker Building this semester, so I haven’t really noticed how overcrowded Hunter has been until now,” they said.

By the evening of Sept. 23, it seemed the effects of the gas leak had been mitigated. Another mass email was sent claiming the building was “safe for use once again.” By the following morning, classes could proceed in the building, as could the many other activities that take place day-to-day through the theater department. 

While the series of notifications was timely, the emails’ contents were obscure.  It remains unclear where or how the leak originated and how it was “deemed safe.”

On the morning of Sept. 24, when the building was set to reopen, another alert was disseminated among students and faculty. Alleging “residual effects of a fuel leak,” the building was closed again to students and faculty. Set to open at 7:00 a.m., the email was sent at 6:30 a.m, allowing professors a thirty-minute notice.

This quick shift posed an issue for Hunter’s student body, most of which are commuters.

“It was frustrating because as a commuter, receiving an email right before class started that class was cancelled meant I was already on the way there,” said Chris Lim, a theater student with classes in the Baker Building.

The Envoy contacted Hunter College Communications on Sept. 27 for comment and received a similar update.

“Once the building is deemed safe by our facilities team, it will be reopened,” said Vince DiMiceli, the Assistant Vice President for Communications. The Hunter administration was confident it would be “a matter of days.”

Ultimately, it was. The last update is available on the Hunter College website: a bright yellow message illuminates the homepage’s top, stating the Baker Building will reopen on Monday, Sept. 30, at 9:45 a.m, and close at 10:30pm.

The Theater Department invites many community spaces, such as rehearsal rooms and club spaces. Not being able to utilize them freely leaves many students without the proper structure for the semester. This chaos is stressful, and disrupts the work they come to Hunter to do.

The problem may have been dealt with, but it will largely persist in different ways.

“This issue points to the larger issues that Hunter has,” Lim said. “Invest more into capital improvements so that the buildings don’t pose hazards to our health.”

On Monday morning, when the building re-opened, Ellie Oates headed to her class on the 6th floor of the Baker Building.

But Oates, a sophomore, quickly realized things were not back to normal. The building, Oates said, smelled like gas.

“My theater class moved out of the building this morning because our room and the elevator specifically still smelled,” she said.

So she was relocated again. Today, it would be an empty building in the North Building. Tomorrow, however, is uncertain.