Welcome to the NFB Jernigan Institute | National Federation of the Blind

Revised August 2024

We hope you enjoy your time at the headquarters of the National Federation of the Blind. We are proud to host you and want your time here to be the best it can be. Whether you are visiting for a couple of hours or staying overnight, we invite you to read the following Guide.

Help us to host people in the future, distribute free white canes, promote Braille, create accessible STEAM programming, and more. Please pay it forward by contributing to the National Federation of the Blind.

Visiting the NFB Jernigan Institute

Upon arrival to the headquarters, please enter through any set of double doors on the Wells Street side of the building, move to the center of the building, and take the elevators to the fourth floor.

Below is important information for you to know while you are with us. You can also skip to Staying Overnight at the NFB Jernigan Institute.

General Information

The wireless network in the building is called NFB-Visitor. The password is “add2decade”.
There are unisex restrooms on either side of the elevator column in the fourth-floor atrium. Other available restrooms may be identified during your visit.
There is an ATM located in the lunchroom on the fourth floor.
There is no smoking in our building. However, there is a smoking deck off the second floor for people who wish to use it. You will always need your keycard to return to the building from the smoking area. If you are not staying overnight and want access to our second-floor deck, please reach out to Tammy Helm at [email protected] or Paul Ficarro at [email protected] to obtain a keycard.
Guide dogs are welcome in our building. There is a relief area inside the garage. When exiting the Jernigan Institute atrium elevators, exit to the right. Exit the atrium using the doors into the garage (rather than the glass doors out to Wells St.). Keeping the wall to your right, you will notice at the end of the curb the relief area is a slight step down off the curb. The trash can and spare dog bags are located on the wall just before the relief area. Note that you will need a key card to re-enter the building during the times that the doors are locked.
Alcohol is not permitted in the building unless approval from President Riccobono has been obtained.

Accessibility

As you would expect, we strive to make the NFB Jernigan Institute fully accessible to all of our members and visitors. If you find barriers or ways we can improve, please share them with us. Here are some free services that we have made available that you may find beneficial:

AIRA—The NFB Jernigan Institute is a free AIRA access point. AIRA is an on demand visual interpreting service. By using the AIRA app on your smart phone you can initiate a call and be connected to an AIRA agent.
Be My Eyes—This is a free mobile application that connects blind people needing support with volunteers and companies anywhere in the world, through live video and artificial intelligence.
Good Maps—Our facility has been mapped for Good Maps, which offers innovative AI-driven indoor navigation that enables everyone the freedom and autonomy to discover and interact with the world around them. You can use this application to learn and navigate around the property.

Explore the Hallways

On the walls throughout the Jernigan Institute hang photos of blind people living the lives they want. This diverse collection of our members across the last sixty years makes for suitable building decor, but also serves the purpose of reminding us that blind people participate in and enjoy a vast range of activities, from traveling independently to chopping wood, from raising a family to skydiving, and more. We are excited to add descriptions to these photos but request your feedback on a small sampling of them that are currently available. We have implemented the following process in the front hallway by the Utah Auditorium down to the Office of the President suite.

These hallway photos have been fitted with near-field communication (NFC) tags to enable visitors to access a description of each image. NFC tags can easily be read using a smart phone when standing in front of each photo. Tags can be detected by holding your phone over the lower right corner, about an inch from the front side of the photo. You may need to move your phone up and down or back and forth to align your phone's reader with the location of the NFC tag. Take care not to rub your phone against the photo. A phone's NFC reader location depends on the model—it may be in the corner of some phones while in the center of others.

Android phones will automatically alert you when an NFC tag is detected. If you are using an iOS device, you will need to download and open an NFC reader. We have found Simply NFC to be a reasonably accessible option (download the app). We are excited to get your feedback and implement descriptions to the photos in the rest of the Jernigan Institute. Thank you for taking the time to explore the hallways.

Food and Drink

Some single-day events include snacks, meals, beverages. Check with your point of contact to confirm what arrangements have been made for your visit.
Help us be more “green." You are welcome to bring a water bottle and/or sealable mug for hot beverages with you to our building. In order to reduce the amount of trash we generate, and the extra cost associated, we are attempting to minimize our use of Styrofoam cups and bottled water. If it is desired, bottled water is available in our vending machine.
There are soda machines in the lunchroom and filtered water in the southwest sink in the lunchroom.

Emergency Doors

If a fire alarm sounds, the building must be evacuated unless there is an announcement to the contrary. Occupants will be directed to use the fire escape stairwells when evacuating the building and to gather at a safe location in Riverside Park. The program organizer should attempt to account for all the people who were in the building for your event. Do not instruct anyone to use the elevators to exit the building in case of a fire. The elevators shut down automatically when a fire alarm is activated. There are multiple emergency stairwells:

One in the northwest corner of the building near the staff offices. Walking away from Members Hall, take the short hallway between the BZ Conference Room and the Scott LaBarre Conference Room and turn left before you reach the double glass doors. Follow that hallway until it ends, and the door will be just to the right. Once on the ground (first) floor, exit to the driveway off Byrd Street.
One is to the left of the elevator bank. Walking away from Members Hall (or the library on the third floor), walk to the left of the elevator column. When you reach the railing or the wall, take a left and exit through the first door you encounter on your right. This exits on the Wells Street side of the building near the driveway into the garage.
And a third is on the Johnson Street side of the building. Walk past the accounting offices and make a right before you get to the locked door to the sleeping rooms. After turning right down a short hallway, the door will be the third one on your left. go through the third door on the left, walk through a small office-size open space, go through the other door in that room, and make a U-turn to the left to the stairs. Once you are on the ground floor (actually the second floor), exit through the door that leads to Johnson Street.

Scent-Free Environment

The National Federation of the Blind fosters a safe, inclusive environment for all members, employees, and visitors in our building, the Jernigan Institute. We ask that you refrain from wearing or using excessive fragrances, including perfumes, colognes, and scented personal-care products. Some employees and visitors may have allergies to fragrances, the effects of which may be dangerous. Thank you for maintaining a safe, inclusive environment for all.

Staying Overnight at the NFB Jernigan Institute

General Information

All guests staying at the NFB Jernigan Institute will be issued a keycard to access their sleeping room. The card will also be programmed to access certain doors throughout the building and the exterior doors. The keycards will be issued by the event point-of-contact or the manager on duty. That person will also tell you how the keycards will be collected at the end of the event. There will be a $25 fee levied against anyone that does not return their keycard when leaving.
The doors to the building lock after 5:00 p.m. during the week and remain locked through weekends. Be sure to have your keycard with you whenever you leave. In fact, since the sleeping room doors automatically lock and can only be opened with a keycard, you should have yours with you at all times.
There is no smoking in our building. However, there is a smoking deck off the second floor for people who wish to use it. You will always need your keycard to return to the building from the smoking area.
There will be someone who is designated as the “overnight in charge.” This person is available to answer any questions you may have and to help you with anything you need while you are staying in the building. This person will be staying in bedroom 18, unless you are notified differently.
Guide dogs are welcome in our building. There is a relief area inside the garage. When exiting the Jernigan Institute atrium elevators, exit to the right. Exit the atrium using the doors into the garage (rather than the glass doors out to Wells St.). Keeping the wall to your right, you will notice at the end of the curb the relief area is a slight step down off the curb. The trash can and spare dog bags are located on the wall just before the relief area. Note that you will need a key card to re-enter the building during the times that the doors are locked.
The wireless network in the building is called NFB-Visitor. The password is “add2decade”.
There is an ATM located in the lunchroom on the fourth floor.
Alcohol is not permitted in the building unless approval from President Riccobono has been obtained.

Rooming

Rooms at the NFB Jernigan Institute are hotel-style and are furnished with towels and linens. You will need your own toiletries.
There is a good chance that you will be sharing your room with other participants; please come prepared.
Please let us know if you require a wheelchair-accessible room.
Please let us know if you have a service animal, so we can be sure to accommodate you.
Each sleeping room has a door that will automatically be locked at all times, and from the hallway, can only be opened with a keycard.
When you leave, please leave your towels on the bathroom floor, and leave the bed linens on the bed.
There is a linen closet room across the hallway from bedroom 10. There are hair dryers and stepstools stored there, as well as supplies like extra toilet paper and blankets.

In the Rooms

The sleeping rooms have a three-button light switch. The top button turns the lights all the way on and emits a high tone when pushed. The middle button turns the lights on 75 percent and emits a moderate tone when pushed. The bottom button turns the lights off and emits a low tone when pushed. The light switches in the casual spaces have four buttons, from top to bottom: 100 percent, 75 percent, 50 percent, and off. Each button emits a tone that decreases from top to bottom.
There is a small lamp next to each bed. The flat surface of the base is a wireless charging station and there is also a USB port in the side of the base. To turn the lamp on and off, tap the small round disk on the top of the light.
Each room has a large window facing the street (either Barney Street or Johnson Street). There are blinds that, when lowered, cover the windows for privacy and/or for minimizing light into the room. Each set of blinds has a loop chain on the far-right side that loops front to back. The front of the chain can be pulled down to open blinds (pull hard, straight down) and the back side of the chain can be pulled down to close the blinds.
Each room has a thermostat. In each sleeping room, on the wall two feet beyond your fully opened hallway door is a square thermostat with three tactile dots. From left to right, the dot functions are cooler, activate, and warmer. To adjust the temperature in your room, press the center dot to activate the thermostat. Then press either the right or the left dot up to three times, depending on how much you would like to adjust the temperature. The default set point for sleeping rooms is 72 degrees. You may increase or decrease the temperature by as much as two degrees in either direction.
If you are in sleeping room suite 15, there are three thermostats. The parlor thermostat is around the right corner when you enter from the hallway. Each bedroom thermostat is two feet from the bedroom door over the first bed.
Each room has a walk-in shower in the bathroom. There is no door to the shower.
Each room has a telephone next to the bed. Dial 7 to access an outside line. Sleeping room and office extensions are listed in the print and Braille phone list kept near the phone.

Food and Drink

All meals will be provided unless otherwise noted on the program agenda.
The kitchen in the casual space is completely equipped with a refrigerator, oven, cooktop, sink, and microwave. The cupboards are stocked with dishes, glassware, utensils, cookware, etc.
The drink line in the dining room (on the far west wall) will be open all day and night. Starting on the left end of the line, this is what is available: hot water tap (part of the coffee brewer), a sink, an ice/water machine with ice dispensed on the left and chilled water on the right, a small refrigerator with milk and half-and-half, a juice dispenser with apple juice on the left and orange juice on the right, an iced tea dispenser with unsweetened tea on the left and sweet tea on the right, and pump urns with coffee and decaf coffee. Everything is labeled with Braille.
There are soda machines in the lunchroom.
Help us be more “green." It is recommended that you bring a water bottle and/or sealable mug for hot beverages with you to our building. In order to reduce the amount of trash we generate, and the extra cost associated, we are attempting to eliminate our use of Styrofoam cups and bottled water. If it is desired, bottled water is available in our vending machine and coffee mugs are available for hot beverages. (Please be a good citizen; if you use a mug, glass, or dish, wash it and put it away.)

Doors

As stated previously, all locked doors that you have access to open will be programmed to be unlocked with your keycard. This includes the doors from Wells Street, Johnson Street (from the street and at the top of the stairs), and the garage (onto the Wells Street side). It also includes the doors from the office areas into the foyer and the hang out.
To get to the sleeping rooms, there are two options. You can use the glass double doors from the foyer and walk through the casual area. Or you can walk through the lunchroom, take a left and walk past the Fourth Floor Conference Room, through the double doors, and into the new area at the hang out.
- The keycard access point for the double doors leading to the foyer is immediately to the left of the doors on the exposed brick wall, about forty-four inches above the floor.
- The keycard access point for the double doors leading to the hang out is on the right-side wall, about six feet before the doors, about forty-four inches above the floor. Be forewarned that there is also a fire alarm pull box along the same wall—several inches to the left of the keycard access point.
The Barney Street elevator (in the brick wall in the casual space) will not be operating unless people are staying in the courtyard rooms. In that case, the elevator will only open on that floor.
At the south end of the family room is an exposed brick wall that is seventy feet long. From west to east (right to left) along this brick wall you will find an emergency exit door, a utility closet, the Barney Street elevator (which allows you to access the courtyard rooms), and then a restroom.

Emergency Doors

Several doors are for emergency use only.
- The door from the living room to the sleeping rooms to the right of the fountain opens with a panic bar that sets off an alarm. It does not open from the sleeping-room side of the door.
- In the family room, along the exposed brick wall, the first door on the right is an emergency exit (no re-entry).
If a fire alarm sounds, the building must be evacuated unless there is an announcement to the contrary. Occupants will be directed to use the fire escape stairwells when evacuating the building and to gather at a safe location in Riverside Park. The NFB overnight in-charge and/or program organizer should attempt to account for all the people who were in the building. Do not instruct anyone to use the elevators to exit the building in case of a fire. The elevators shut down automatically when a fire alarm is activated. There are three emergency stairwells:
- The one in the exposed brick wall in the family area. This leads to the courtyard of the building. Exit to either Byrd or Wells Streets.
- One in the northwest corner of the building. Exit through the double doors by the foyer, take a right down the hallway to the west. The door will be just to the right at the end of that hallway.
- And the third is in the northeast corner. Exit through the double doors by the hang out. Take the first left down a short hallway, go through the third door on the left, walk through a small office-size open space, go through the other door in that room, and make a U-turn to the left to the stairs.

Workout Space

There are cubbies for your belongings in the workout space.
There are two containers of disinfectant wipes: one on the west wall by the rower and the second to the right of the east door.

Thank You for Staying

We appreciate you being here at the Jernigan Institute and hope you will come back soon. Please consider contributing to the National Federation of the Blind to support advancing the lives of our members and all blind people.

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