After getting no response for over a year from the NYS Division of Code Enforcement and Administration (DCEA) concerning a complaint that I filed about building code violations in Milstein-Sibley-Rand Halls, I was advised by DCEA officials to file a formal appeal with the regional office of the State DCEA. I submitted this appeal on May 28, 2013.

A summary of these code violations (taken from the appeal document), as well as the appeal document itself, can be found here.

Site Plan showing Milstein-Sibley-Rand Hall (plan by Jonathan Ochshorn based on schematic site plan available on Cornell's Milstein Hall web site superimposed on a Google Map showing the Cornell campus).

Just received this bizarre email notice from Cornell administrators:

For the rest of the semester and until after commencement the Milstein Auditorium will have two rows of the trustee seats up out of the floor. There are 138 seats in the sloped section. If anyone needs more seats we can add up to 40 more in front of the 2 trustee rows. Please note that no one should uncover or sit in the trustee seats for any reason.

Such a crass and obvious expression of our class society — the  surprising thing about it is not that the “trustees” are treated like royalty, but that the Cornell administrators who created this exclusive seating arrangement are apparently oblivious to its meaning.