BACK TO SCHOOL DEPT.DUMPSTER DIVING

Each year, in late May, the custodial crew at N.Y.U. conducts a lightning sweep of the campus's twentythree dorms in preparation for the abbreviated summer session.

- -Ben McGrath

Everything must go: dumpsters' worth of power cords, curling irons, cutlery, scarves, and scales. It's an extraordinary amount of waste for an institution that serves a transient population, and this summer, for the first time, a group of student interns in the facilities department set about collating the abandoned material, sifting through the dross (a hoodie underneath a carton of melted ice cream, say) and the hidden treasure (black Louboutins, barely worn), with the idea that students, and incoming freshmen especially, could benefit from a hand-me-down exchange. Thus was born the inaugural N.Y.U. Swap Shop, run out of a vacant grocery store on Second Avenue, "where students can find FREE gently-used living essentials," as a poster advertised.