New Hackensack (or “New Hack” for those who are suffering) follows the adage that just because you can put a class in a building that is technically a part of campus, it doesn’t mean you should. I am convinced that there are still large swaths of campus that have never even heard of this building, unaware that life exists past the SoCos. The name certainly doesn’t help. Whenever I tell my mother “I walked all the way to New Hackensack,” my mother will inevitably believe I trekked two towns over for a class, which, though wrong, is not far off.
I remember when I finished taking “Analog Photography,” my first class at New Hackensack, thinking, “Well, that was a crazy trip for a semester hahaha. Glad I never have to do that again.” Two semesters later and I’ve enrolled in classes in New Hackensack three semesters in a row now. How foolish can I be?
Like most studio art losers, I started making art at Vassar in Ely Hall taking Drawing I and II. While admittedly kind of a dingy art-making space in its own right, Ely Hall gets credit for being in the heart of campus and having large windows. Drawing class gives students a false sense that the college provides decent buildings for studio art classes, but if you get into painting, photography or any type of digital art, get ready to spend LOTS of time in the void that is New Hackensack.
Not only is New Hackensack on the outskirts of campus, the Art Department splits the building with Security, one of the strangest collaborations to ever have been dreamt up and executed. That’s like if the MoMa was in a corner of the Pentagon. It’s like putting up posters for RFK Jr.’s presidential run at Vassar. It’s like JPEGMAFIA linking up with Kanye. It just doesn’t make any sense, and yet two out of three of those are real.
The first time I went to New Hackensack I was naturally confused, as the only identifiable signage on the building on the facade is a sign for Security. I thought, “Alright, well if I enter through there I can surely get to the art classes portion, right?” I was informed by security inside that the Art and Security sections had essentially walled each other off and that the side door to the building was how you got to the art classes. Ah, I should have understood things right there. New Hackensack: the only building on campus where the main door is the side.
Another fun fact about New Hackensack is that it used to be a nursery school. That might sound inconsequential, but it is painfully obvious that the building was not designed for education. There are all these strange closets everywhere with bright green walls, the photography room was clearly converted from an industrial kitchen and colored tiles litter the walkways like an old Chuck E. Cheese.
There’s a fair argument that if there were any building on campus in which to slather oil paint on the furniture and stain the floors with film developer, this is the place to do it I guess, but why did it have to be this building? Why couldn’t they let art students tear up Ferry House? You can’t tell me anyone is actually fond of that building. Put an art class on the third floor of the Deece. I would take literally any place closer.
New Hackensack is the Pluto of campus, the New Zealand of Vassar maps, frequently cut off in images. Taking any class immediately after a New Hackensack one feels like some kind of wicked timed gameshow. I’m trekking from New Hack to Rocky in ten minutes twice a week and feel like death every time I get to my Poli Sci class.
Why don’t you just drop the class at New Hackensack, Nick? Or the class after? Well, here’s the thing: I don’t drop classes, even if there is ample reason to do so and almost no incentive for me to continue to take the class or if I think I might enjoy a different class more. For me the grass is never greener. It is at best about the same level of greenness, or less green, or is greener now but will get frostbitten the next week. I just don’t change classes mid-semester.
I was talking to a friend the other day who was telling me about a class he dropped and he said, “I was out when they had us comparing chairs for like twenty minutes.” I wish I had that kind of discretion. The worst part was that I knew the class he was talking about because I took the class, and I can tell you that 20 minutes of chair comparison was just the tip of the iceberg. Still, I didn’t drop the class. What if the class I took instead had 40 minutes of chair comparison? Or 60? What if some greater hell than New Hackensack exists on campus just waiting for me to discover it? Studio art students can’t be the only losers this college is punishing.
Thanks for sharing Nicholas Tillinghast’s amusing perspective on the trials of attending art classes at 39 New Hackensack Rd. The building was designed by former Faculty member Jeh Johnson (also of ALANA Center) for the Poughkeepsie Day School, a progressive independent pre-K thru 12 cooperative founded in 1934 by several Vassar faculty members. PDS operated there for 35 years beginning in 1963 before relocating to its current Boardman Road campus and many PDS alums have fond memories of art-making at the 39 New Hackensack location.
I had to pull up a map to see where the building was. No comments from me about how soft students are these days…that’s a serious hike! And I thought we had it bad when sculpture was in the greenhouse and we had to wear coats to class.