Gas leak leaves 620 residents without stoves throughout semester, renovations soon to begin

Residents have gone nearly six months without working stoves or ovens following a May gas leak. The College says upcoming improvements will include electric kitchen ranges and air conditioning units.

Photo by Karissa Song/The Barnard Bulletin

By Riya Mahanta

November 12, 2025

Residents of Barnard’s 620 West 116th Street building remain without working stoves and ovens nearly six months after a street-level gas leak in May 2025. As the outage continues into the fall semester, Barnard announced it will begin the first phase of major renovations to the residence hall later this month, modernizing the building’s more than 100-year-old infrastructure and installing electric kitchen ranges and air conditioning units in every suite.

In August, Residential Life and Housing informed residents of 620 that while heating and hot water remain available, the outage rendered all suite kitchen stoves and ovens unusable. Residential Life and Housing also added that it is working with the energy company Con Edison and the City of New York to complete necessary repairs, and that preparation for the project will begin in mid-November, according to Barnard’s Office of Capital Projects. 

“By modernizing the aging infrastructure of this building, we’re going to improve student well-being while simultaneously lowering our environmental footprint,” said Kelli Murray, Executive Vice President for Strategy and Chief Administrative Officer, in an official statement released Monday. “The renovation reflects our ongoing commitment to create the best student experience possible, and also to weave sustainable practices throughout our operations.”

Many students said the lack of stoves and ovens has disrupted their daily routines and meal planning. Some questioned the College’s decision not to reduce housing fees despite the loss of key kitchen amenities.

“I think Barnard either should’ve reduced the housing cost or, if that presented too much of a difficulty, at least comped a higher meal plan,” said Divya Chaudhry (BC ’28). Chaudhry was initially assigned to 620, but was reassigned to Plimpton Hall before move-in began in September.

While the College’s policy allows residents to use certain cooking appliances, according to current 620 resident Jasminder Kohli (BC ’27), hot plates were not distributed to affected residents. 

“Barnard gave people hot plates last semester, but took them out of our dorms this semester,” Kohli told The Bulletin. “I would at least expect some material compensation for the fact that Barnard promised 620 residents an oven and a stove, yet it’s on us students to replace it. It’s not fair.”

Chaudhry also expressed frustration about untimely communication from the College.

“I wish they told us a lot earlier,” she told The Bulletin. “620 had been having issues since May — the housing lottery was already done by then. The College knew I was [going to live] in 620 [the following fall], yet I didn’t find out until mid-August about the stove situation, about two weeks before move-in.”

“Impacted students were offered priority relocation or the chance to cancel housing assignments, solutions for food preparation in their suites, and the opportunity to adjust their meal plans,” said a Barnard spokesperson in a statement to The Bulletin. The solutions included permitting residents to have induction cooktops or air fryers with auto-shutoff features, which are prohibited in all other College residence halls.

Chaudhry noted that after contacting Residential Life and Housing for a room change, her own relocation process was “not super difficult.”

“Options-wise, it was honestly kind of vague,” she said. “They didn’t give us any data, like ‘these are all the rooms available’; they just told us to reach out and then they would give us one. When I reached out, they offered me three different housing options and were pretty flexible.”

However, not everyone was satisfied with their room swap options. 

“The College said they would give us priority room swaps, but they did that after the guaranteed list was out, so it wasn’t even like you got priority rooms — rather, the priority of whatever leftovers there were,” Kohli said. “I did request a room swap but it would have been into a corridor style, which is not what I wanted, and at that point the kitchen access was also pretty limited so that wasn’t a better option.”

Beyond the inconvenience of daily meal preparations, some students said the outage has also affected social life in their suites.

“Our suite has a nice common space, but since we don’t have a working oven or stove, we can’t really invite our friends over for dinner as much as we would like to,” Kohli said. “It’s frustrating because we have a proper living room, but it’s not like our friends are going to bring their hot food through the cold to our suite.”

The upcoming renovation and installation of electric kitchen ranges will, according to the College, not only address infrastructure challenges but also reduce reliance on gas and advance Barnard’s pledge to reach net-zero emissions by 2040.