I’m the engineering director at Forge, a nonprofit with a mission of empowering students and accelerating their early career growth. Until recently, we held the beautiful green house at #9 across from Bilt and Take It Away. The space functioned as a sort of better 1515 where students had 24/7 access to computers, projectors, books, study spaces, and more. But the space suffered from two large issues.
The first issue was free-riding by non-paying guests. Members were charged a small membership fee ($25/semester) to keep the space clean. Too often, members shared their unique pin code with non-paying friends. The shared resources of the space became messier and more wore down given the overuse compared to the membership revenue to replenish the space. But since this isn’t a public good (the door can be locked), the solution is simple: charge a higher price or fine members for allowing non-paying guests. The second issue was the negative externality of our neighbors below, Coupes. It’s loud, late-night music made the building shake and made it hard to study. The only period it was quiet at night was when Coupes was rebuilding itself after its kitchen fire, but then too the construction noise only shifted the externality from night to day. Perhaps the solution here would have been to buy out the space before they rebuilt themselves or find another study location with more favorable noise ordinance policies.
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