Topping Off for New Education Building

The final beams were placed atop the Medical and Graduate Education Building in early October. The beams complete the facility’s superstructure, a 14-story state-of-the-art facility at 104 Haven Ave.

Members of the P&S community took part in the milestone by leaving their marks on the structure’s final beam. Hundreds of signatures, personal notes, and quotations were scrawled across the beam by students, faculty, and staff while the beam was displayed in the P&S Alumni Auditorium lobby.

Among those who signed were a medical student and a dental student who met and married at the medical center. Others wrote quotations, such as “Education is Power.” One person scrawled the names of two P&S students who died in accidents, Jonathan Tang and Jimmy Watts, both members of the Class of 2016.

Signing the beam—and reading what others had written—had a sentimental significance for many who stopped by to see the beam. For Cecilia Davis-Hayes’17, signing the beam was a way to express a close connection to the building and to her class. “This building is part of the legacy of our class. We’re all so proud of our school. Doing this expresses that we will always have a connection with P&S.”

Towering approximately 223 feet above the ground, the new Medical and Graduate Education Building has quickly risen to take its place as the northern anchor of the medical center campus.

The new building site has been a hub of construction activity, as more than 100 contractors have been working since late summer 2013 to create a facility scheduled to open in 2016.

For monthly construction updates on the new Medical and Graduate Education Building, visit http://educationbldg.cumc.columbia.edu/ and click “Project Updates.”