The stairway has been temporarily removed to facilitate the removal of old paint and rust. Measures are being taken to prevent the incursion of water into the structure.

Peter Bundock, assistant vice president for facilities at Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC), said that repairs began in the fall semester partly because the process of designing the remediation and getting funding was completed just before the start of the school year. A fall start was also considered to be less of an inconvenience.

“I thought there would have been more inconvenience in the summer when public access to the plaza is most used by mothers with their babies.

Students and walkers have several other means of access to the plaza, and [the construction] should not present any inconvenience,” Bundock said.

Sophia Suppa, FCLC ’11, thinks that it is more important to consider the needs of students than outsiders.

“Students are paying full tuition to go here. They should have done this in the summer so they wouldn’t inconvenience us,” Suppa said.

Gianna Santos, FCLC ’11, can understand why students might be upset, but also appreciates Bundock’s view.

“It makes sense for the plaza to be open during the summer for mothers and their babies,” Santos said. “But we are the students, and we are technically paying to use these facilities.”

Weather permitting, the construction is set to be completed in the middle of November. The work being done to the elevator and the stairway is known as the Glass Tower Project.

Suppa said she misses walking down the stairway to get to the street level.

“When I went to Starbucks, I liked to take the stairs down,” Suppa said. “Now, I have to leave through the lobby.”

However, Luke Villapaz, FCLC ’11, said that an alternate route to the plaza level may be more convenient.

“If anything, I’ve found cutting through the indoor plaza actually saves more time,” he said.

Bundock said that both the elevator and stairway were perfectly safe up until this fall, and would probably have been safe for a number of years, but he said it was better to be proactive rather than reactive.

“We don’t want to approach the point of danger before making repairs,” he said.

Upgrades to McMahon Hall’s and Lowenstein’s elevators, as well as the installation of a new fire alarm system in Lowenstein are other improvement ventures scheduled during the school year.