Brown's doors have no business being this heavy
Last week, I almost got beheaded on the Main Green.
Struggling to haul open the door to Salomon on a windy day, someone who I can only imagine was the Hulk threw the left door open, nearly taking my head with it. It was a close shave. Fine, maybe I wasn’t actually beheaded, but it was certainly dramatic and looking back on the event, it gave me a sort of clarity into an irksome recurring phenomenon in my life at Brown: Why are the doors here so bloody heavy?
Frankly, we’ve let them get away with it for too long. What is it, their ~business~ to add one more deterrent to attending class every day? As if getting out of bed isn’t hard enough, I also have to exhibit a public display of strength as I wrestle with a set of impenetrable doors? Enough is enough. I have been personally victimized by Brown’s thicc entryways for too long and I’m here to #expose them for their perennial misdeeds.
This is a callout post, an airing of grievances if you will, and if you too have been affronted by a door on this campus, hopefully this article gives you a sense of solace and long-awaited justice.
Without further ado, here is a list of the heaviest, stubbornest, and just plain worst doors at Brown.
Sayles Hall Main Door
After extensive inspection and on-site research, I can tell you that the door to Sayles is literally just a massive slab of wood. And that’s exactly what it feels like when you use your comparatively tiny human form to haul it open. Opening the door to Sayles is incredibly intimidating; grabbing onto those ancient ring handles and hearing the wood creak as it slowly glides free, you might as well be entering a dungeon or a gothic castle. I always feel like I’m in the scene in Harry Potter when they’re all tiny and prepubescent and Hagrid opens the door to the Great Hall for the first time. Except that I’m not Hagrid, I’m a 5’4” college student with underused biceps. Anyway, Sayles’ door gets a pass for being very aesthetic and kind of magical, and I can’t say that I don’t feel badass when I am welcomed into her depths. She’s so magical, in fact, that I bet you didn’t notice the picture above is not even Sayles, it’s literally the entryway to the Great Hall in Hogwarts.
The Ratty Doors
Everyone at Brown has had an awkward encounter with the Ratty doors. First of all, why are there so many of them? Besides the most chaotic among us, we really only ever use the rightmost entry doors that lead directly into the card swipe line. This near-constant use has taken its toll on the rightmost doors: they’re overworked, they’re tired, and they want REVENGE. The Ratty doors are crabby, rickety, and desperately in need of a tune up. It’s like they’ve somehow been here since 1906 and no one has ever bothered to change them. When I pull the Ratty doors open, I can almost feel the lack of grease in their hinges. The swing-through is rough and wobbly, and I often have doubts that the doors will hold up when opened farther than 60 degrees. They’re shy and they do NOT like being exposed. During peak hours, it is painful to watch as student after student passes on the responsibility of holding the door ajar against its will. This is not to mention the exit doors: there is something potent about the combination of wind and Ratty door that makes it especially impossible to exit this building. When the right gust hits, there is no amount of forward thrust that can get you and your takeout box out of the protective lap of the Ratty.
Friedman Front Door
This door is brand spanking new and shouldn’t be on this list. But it is. The Friedman door is a clean and fresh-looking front to a foul and misanthropic mechanism. All is fine until you’re about two seconds into the tug, and the door takes on a life of its own and HALTS. For a hot second, you stare in disbelief that this cutting-edge entryway has betrayed you. Frustrated, you reach to pull again when suddenly you realize this door is opening all on its own. It can’t be! You stand and watch as it takes it sweet time. Emotions stir, and not the good kind. This door has robbed you of your autonomy, of the pride of opening a door for yourself. And it made you wait while it did so. Is this truly what accessibility looks like? I may have my opinions, but Friedman ain’t it, chief.
Andrews Common Left Door
This is the hat trick of the bunch. Being the door that delivers hundreds of students to their dinners every day, Andrews Left Door should be elite. A joy to walk through. But if the Ratty doors were any indication, duty is not the primary goal of every doorway. Some like to be stubborn. Andrews Left Door likes to play pranks. From afar, this door looks normal, pleasant even. From up close, the victim is none the wiser. The handle turns smoothly, and the door appears lightweight. However, something goes wrong when the handle stops turning and the door hasn’t swung open yet. Desperate, the victim must publicly humiliate themselves by double-fisting the handle and pulling with their entire body weight. No matter how many times I open this door, I still feel a slight tinge of disappointment as I shift into feral mode to get this door to budge. A few months ago, the handle mysteriously disappeared entirely, likely from another victim on their last straw and out for vengeance. I was hopeful the stuckedness would be resolved with a new handle. But nope, here I am, pulling my arm out of its socket every week for my Sunday yogurt bowl.
Faunce Arch Doors
Look, I’m not weak and I can totally open these doors. Also they are glass, which puts them pretty low on the intimidation scale because I can get a pretty good view of where I’m headed on the other side. But man, these suckers are slow. The hydraulics on Faunce doors are like bank vaults on crack, and it’s upsetting that something that appears so thin is in fact disarmingly heavy. And just as a sick joke, you have to Trojan horse your way through two sets of these glass fortress walls to really say you’ve made it. I’ve seen many a student surrender midway through and stand in the in-between, preparing for another round of Faunce door hefting. If the lethargy of the door doesn’t get to you, the handles certainly will. Once I noticed that the handles are tarnished everywhere except in the center, where a million greasy, germy hands keep them nice and golden, I have not wanted to use my bare hands to open the doors, only making the unique Faunce door experience that much more unforgettable.
Health Services Door
The last thing I want to do when I am ill and weak is stand in front of a massive door and realize that my final obstacle in seeking medical care is not the corrupt scheming of insurance companies, but an actual literal massive closed door. The knobs look like they were handcrafted for André the Giant, necessitating any student with normal-sized mitts to choose between 1) The Awkward Hook and Hoist, and 2) The Double Fist and Hard Lean. I personally prefer The Double Fist and Hard Lean, but there’s honestly no perfect way to walk through these doors. I’ve actually managed to hit a full 45 degree body angle before the door even so much as budges. By the time you make it inside Health Services, you are winded and demoralized knowing that an actual door nearly bested you. A door to a place of healing and convalescence should simply not have this level of antagonistic energy, and frankly, I am Tired.