Columbia University students sometimes wonder who occupied their dorm room in the past. In one room on the Morningside Campus, they didn’t have to guess - it is the Lewis Rosenthal Room.

Beginning around 1930, select dorm rooms received an endowment to cover the cost of a student’s housing. The endowment not only covered the student’s room fees but the cost of maintenance, renovations and furnishings. There was also a bronze plaque with the name of the previous occupant affixed to the wall. Who got to live in these subsidized rooms? Nominees were selected by the class officers and voted on by fellow class members.

In Room 803 of Wallach Hall - a 10-story building built in 1905 - the plaque for Lewis Rosenthal was prominantly displayed.

Lewis was a member of the Columbia College Class of 1928. Rosenthal had enrolled at the Columbia Law School but he died of spinal meningitis at age 22 on August 4, 1930, a year short of graduation. In December 1951, his parents, William and Ida Rosenthal, endowed the room in honor of their son.

The Rosenthal room was occupied by Roger Lehecka in 1966-1967. He went on to serve in the Office of the Dean of Students at Columbia from 1979 to 1998 and then as the Director of Alumni Programs and Special Adviser to the Dean from 1998 to 2001.

The practice of subsidized housing apparently stopped around 1970 and unfortunately the whereabouts of the plaques is unknown.