Is 531 Beacon Street the best dorm at BU?

The rooms are big, yes, but 531 is falling apart from the inside. The neighborhood is nice and quiet though. Top floor toilet leaks and floods atleast once a month causing there to always be some sort of maintenance people in the building, and if you're in the room under that toilet, which is 303, say goodbye to all your clothes in the closet since the toilet water will destroy them.

531 Beacon St is a brownstone way East, across the street from Danielsen, and it has 4 floors and a basement, which has a common room and the washer & dryer. There is another common room with couches on the first floor and the RA’s room. The second through fourth floors have 2-4 rooms which are a mixture of triples and singles. There’s one bathroom & shower on each floor except for the first floor (it’s a private for the RA) and the fourth floor (one bathroom and one bathroom with a shower). Pros: - It's pretty quiet, both inside and outside the building. - The water pressure in the shower is great. - The triples are huge. It looked tiny when I first moved in, but if you don't mind rearranging the furniture a little bit, it actually is a lot bigger than it looks. - The BU bus (day & night) stops right across the street if you want to use it, but there are cons (see below). - It's not too far from Kenmore and Marciano, about a 5-7 minute walk. - LBS events like the duck hunt and the Halloween party, even if there haven't been many events in the spring semester. - You're across the street from MIT frats, which is cool if you're into frat parties, I guess. Cons: - This building is EXTREMELY old and outdated, and it stinks a little. - It’s really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter. - It’s pretty far from campus, which only really sucks when it’s cold or if you don't like walking. I grew up in Boston and I like walking so it's not that big of a deal for me, but I know it's a deal breaker for a lot of people. It takes around 15 minutes to walk to class, which I prefer to the BU bus. - If you’re trying to get home using the BU bus during the day, you’re going to have to take it to BUMC and back, which isn’t too bad but still annoying because sometimes the bus stays at BUMC for up to 20 minutes. - There was construction on the way to/from the rest of campus for most of the year that I lived here and since Storrow Dr is right there a lot of cars tend to speed, which you have to look out for. - The printers and mailroom are across the street in Danielsen, and sometimes they take your mail to Myles, which can be annoying if you get mail sent here. Most people get around this by just getting it send to 531 though. - The toilet on the fourth floor floods if you put anything more solid than toilet paper in it. If you live on the fourth floor it's really just annoying, but if you live on the third floor down, your clothes might get ruined and there's toilet water dripping from the ceiling for the next 12-ish hours. - The fire alarm is SO loud. - Being across the street from the MIT frats can be a little annoying at the start of the year but they don't have many parties after September. - There is a single washer and a single dryer for the whole building. I don't use them so I can't speak to how they work, but with the amount of texts in the GroupMe asking people to empty one or the other so someone else can use them, I imagine it's annoying.