Bexley Hall is an undergrad dormitory at MIT. A converted apartment building, consisting of four four_story walkups surrounding a central courtyard, it is located directly across Massachusetts Avenue from the MIT Building 7 main entrance (77 Massachusetts Avenue), "just a stoned throw from the Institute's front door", as the official description in the MIT Dormitory Guide put it. As former apartments, Bexley rooms have two major advantages over other dormitories: full kitchens, permitting residents to opt out of the dormitory cafeteria plan, and the lowest students-per-toilet ratio of all dormitories.

Traditionally the home of a distinctive anarchic and free-spirited subculture, even by MIT standards, Bexley Hall has long been a thorn in the side of the MIT administration; nevertheless, the hacks, (http://hacks.mit.edu) pranks, and other assorted goings-on in Bexley have always been in the best MIT traditions, more creative and technologically innovative than mean-spirited or destructive. Bexley was among the first MIT dormitories to be coed, despite the best efforts of the administration, and the only dormitory to have its House cat serve as dorm chairman (all the more remarkable in that cats were not then allowed in MIT dormitories). The sense of community among the residents has served as emotional support for many students who would not have fit in well in more mainstream dormitories, and might perhaps otherwise have fallen prey to the combination of stress and isolation which often attacks the MIT student population. Although inherently leaning socially and politically towards the 'youth culture' of the '1960s', the Bexley community discriminates against nobody based on their personal lifestyle or beliefs, and equally accepts right-wingers aiming for a career in the military, foreign students whose life's passion is table tennis, substance-abusing left-over hippies, and hardcore 'Tech tools' who spend long hours in their rooms studying or constructing strange devices of dubious purpose.

Well known alumni of Bexley Hall include Dan Bricklin, co-inventor of the computerized spreadsheet, and Dan Dern, founding editor-in-chief of Internet World (the first Internet-related print publication), Managing Editor and Executive Editor of Byte.com, and freelance author, internet writer, columnist, and pundit.

External links

• Official MIT housing page for Bexley (http://web.mit.edu/housing/undergrad/bexley.html)