I did not hang around incessantly at the front desk–although I do fondly recall our beloved film sage Mr. Ric (RIP). I was not part of any cool kids crowd then nor have I ever been privy to that kind of rarefied set, whether in high school, NYU or beyond. I’m just an average middle-aged woman who came to NYU over 30 years ago to experience the adventure that was sorely missing in my sleepy suburban NJ hometown.

I certainly had no interest in attending Fordham nor did I ever apply there. Consequently, I don’t know how you came up with that notion that the students who attended NYU back then were rejected by Fordham. Except for one person, a former roommate and to this day one of my dearest friends (who did apply and was accepted to Fordham but chose NYU instead), I don’t recall my NYU pals expressing any interest in going there either. (I think quite a few actually were interested in Columbia; in fact, I remember back then hearing that NYU was where you went when you DIDN’T get into Columbia).

But like you, I do recall the unbridled and infectious energy that permeated Weinstein dorm in the early 1980s. There was a ferment of intellectual, creative and even social activity that was beyond exciting—it was electric. However, I wonder how much of that excitement stemmed from the relative newness of being in the greatest city in the world and how much of that was youth. I think it was a combination of both, coupled with living in downtown New York City at a very interesting turning point in the city’s history and in the annals of pop/music culture.

And, also like you, I vividly recall the night that John Lennon was killed (and I’m mystified as to why you don’t come out and name what transpired on December 8, 1980). I was in my Weinstein dorm room cramming for an English history exam that was going to be held the next day when suddenly, in desperate need of a break, I turned on ABC’s Eyewitness News. The co-anchor Roger Grimsby was reporting the breaking news about the former Beatle being shot multiple times in front of his apartment building by a crazed fan. My jaw dropped.

Although I was too young to see the Beatles in all their early moptop glory on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and I certainly was too young to play out the grooves of later classic albums like”Sgt Pepper” or “Abbey Road,” the Beatles had been a seminal influence on me. And not just because they were then and still are the iconic pop/rock band in the contemporary music pantheon. But because during the summer of 1974, exactly 40 years ago, when I was teetering between childhood and adolescence, I had “discovered” them with a friend. Every day, either she or I would go to each other’s house, play the LPs until one of our parents would yell at us for mercy to stop and talk Beatles. We read Hunter Davies’ bio of the Beatles and voraciously consumed every Beatles-related article we could find. That summer, I became a veritable Beatlephile.

Though my newly attained Beatlemania would soon become superseded by my love for another band, The Who, the four lads from Liverpool would forever occupy a warm place in my heart.

So when I heard that night that John Lennon, the smart-ass Beatle,had been gunned down in front of the Dakota, I shut off the TV and ran downstairs to the lobby to see if the others also heard the news. I knew they did but I also knew that I needed the sheltering comfort, the emotional solidarity of fellow students, even if I didn’t know many of them who were clustering around the front desk or gathering in knots of conversation in other parts of the dorm lobby.

Later, as night dissolved into the wee hours of the morning, I ran interference between the news blaring from the Weinstein front desk and the dorm library where a friend of mine was on duty, reporting to him the latest details of the unfolding tragedy, which up until 9/11—was my equivalent to the JFK assassination in terms of a public event having a lasting personal effect on me.

Probably, the greatest legacy of my days at Weinstein (and in subsequent NYU dorms) were the friendships I formed. They all had a depth and nuance to them that sadly later friendships lacked. (But then again,isn’t that a truism that applies for so many people in their post-collegiate lives?). No surprise that some of my most valued friends today are those whom I met from those wild and woolly Weinstein days. And it doesn’t matter if I’m not in touch with them as frequently as I like, the minute we’re in contact it’s like magic and those old bonds are instantly re-forged. Kind of like my time at Weinstein: wild, magical, turbulent and forever indelible.