8-Ball Hall: home to a different kind of basement table
Although Dartmouth students are doubtless familiar with other types of basements and tables, many remain unfamiliar with the 8-Ball Hall Game Room, the newest addition to the scene. From students waiting for a meal to those looking for alternative evening plans, 8-Ball Hall offers entertainment and open spaces for anyone who stops by.
The game room, occupying the area previously called Fuel in the Collis Center, is a nifty, stylish social space reinvented as part of the fall and winter renovations of Collis. The new room invites visitors inside with its warm splashes of color and three plasma screen televisions.
If you ever rocked out with your friends during a Friday Night Rock concert, you’ll be struck by how spacious the room now feels. Beware—surrounded by windowed walls, everybody can see what you’re doing. But the glass frames open up the room, making it feel casual and homey, if a little too open.
With soft retro couches the Jetsons would admire, it’s easy to relax in the space. It’s also a good spot for studying if you don’t mind the occasional rowdy pool game, and it could become the perfect hideaway during the finals season rush in Baker-Berry library. If you’re hungry, Collis Cafe is just up the stairs, and Collis Market (read: Topside) is right next door.
Featuring an awesome chalkboard wall, the room invites you to get creative. Pool rivals have used the wall to record scores, and some inventive lovers have left their mark. (We get it Charlotte and Bage — you’re in love!)
There are, however, some issues with the space. It’s not particularly cool inside, and the oddly shaped side tables are inconvenient for large objects, including laptops and backpacks. The lighting is also limited, with the brightest fixtures placed above the pool tables. Two pinball machines are cramped in back alongside a sound system. If you don’t look hard enough while passing by, you may miss them.
In spite of these problems, the space has potential to be an “alternative social space” that finally lives up to the title. Future trip leaders, consider taking your trippees here to chill out and reminisce over an intense game of pool after picking up Collis stir-fry to go. Lovers, follow Charlotte and Bage’s lead and cuddle on the plush furniture before writing your initials on the chalk wall.
The room has played host to a variety of students and organizations since it opened during the last week of spring term. Rising Hanover High School senior Mattson Rosenbaum said his classmates occasionally share the room with Dartmouth students. He and his friends visit 8-Ball Hall around twice a week, he said, calling it a “pretty good place.”
Mentors in the “Directing through recreation, education, adventure and mentoring” program — DREAM — compete with their mentees in friendly games of pool. The space is particularly popular among the program’s younger boys, though mentees of all ages enjoy playing games there.
“The pool room is great because it has a lot of space and a variety of games,” mentor Avalon McRae ’15 said. “On Fridays during DREAM, we can take our mentees there whether they are six or sixteen and they love it.”
Other students who had used the space said they did so infrequently, adding that the room should be better advertised.
“I just walked by and I was like ‘oh, sweet,’ I’d never even known about it,” Pablo Marvel ’15 said. “I think that the potential for use is so much greater than its actual use right now.”