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New Blue Light Emergency Call Boxes Installed On Campus
 Barnard has updated and doubled the number of emergency call boxes campus-wide, installing a new "blue light" system that is highly visible and incorporates new technology that will speed up the response time to any emergency.
Instead of sending an emergency call to the security dispatcher, the new system broadcasts the call over the campus security radio network so that all guards on duty can hear it. It will eliminate the existing two-step response to any accident, fire, crime, or other emergency.
In addition, the new call boxes are highly visible with a blue light that makes them easy to spot in an emergency, particularly at night. According to Security Director William Plackenmeyer, the new system will serve as a deterrent against campus crime. Plackenmeyer says that the blue light boxes are the most popular system on the market. The ones at Barnard are brightly colored in red, yellow and blue, thus highly visible.
Barnard has installed 16 of the cutting-edge wireless boxes on the campus itself and on the perimeter along Broadway and Claremont Avenue, as well as on West 120th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues and in the tunnel that connects campus buildings (see location list below).
In any emergency, the boxes are simple to use: an alarm is activated by pushing a button and a message is automatically sent to the security staff over their radios in real time. The guards can instantaneously respond. The technology is an upgrade over the previous system that sent a message to a dispatcher who then had to radio a guard. The new call boxes are designed to significantly reduce response time by the security guards, Plackenmeyer said.
When activated, each box transmits its location to the security system, contributing to the quicker response. The new boxes are part of Barnard's ongoing attention to technological advances in security, and updates to emergency systems, said Plackenmeyer. Barnard's campuswide emergency plan is available online at: http://www.barnard.edu/newnews/news033103.html
Locations of the boxes are as follows:
- 119th Street and Claremont Avenue
- 119th Street and Broadway
- 120th Steet between Broadway and Claremont Avenue
- 120th Street mid-block in front of Teacher's College
- Plimpton Hall on Amsterdam Avenue
- 116th Street just off Broadway
- 620 West 116th Street
- 26 Claremont Avenue door entrance
- Northside of Barnard Hall near Lehman Lawn
- Altschul Plaza near south staircase"
- The walkway between the 119th street gates on Broadway and
Claremont Avenue
- Sulzberger corridor near restrooms
- Reid corridor near Brooks entrance
- Barnard corridor near north staircase
- Hewitt corridor at south end of Barnard Hall"
- Lehman corridor near elevators
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