Columbia University

On November 19 Columbia University and the Manhattan Borough President's Office held a conference on The Politics of Food. The half-day conference was devoted to one of New York City's biggest challenges: ensuring that the public has ready access to high-quality food. Speakers included Columbia President Lee Bollinger, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and H.E. Father Miquel d'Escoto Brockmann, President of the United Nations General Assembly.

At the conference, Mayor Bloomberg linked the food issue to what he considers to be his administration's most important achievement - increased life expectancy for the people who live here. That figure is now greater than the average longevity of the U.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg’s political lifespan just got extended, thanks to the City Council. But at least he’s trying to make the rest of New York live longer as well.  read more »

It has now been almost a half century since the idea of a global and interconnected biosphere was popularized by environmental pioneers such as Rachel Carson and Barry Commoner. It's been about four decades since astronauts broadcast the first images of our small, fragile bright blue planet from outer space. Until then, the idea of an interdependent planet was an abstraction. Those photos made the idea of our connectivity quite real.

Today, the issue of global sustainability has moved front and center in our political process, and it is reflected in the way we think about economic development, poverty eradication and even in the way we live.  read more »

Here's a write-up by Observer intern Lien Hoang of a visit by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to the Columbia campus on Friday:  read more »

Columbia has paid $14.8 million for a warehouse in the footprint of its planned West Harlem expansion, closing on a deal from 2007 with the owners of Despatch Moving & Storage, according to property records. The sale price equates to about $235 per square foot, based on figures from the real estate tracking service PropertyShark, which puts the size of the building at 62,200 square feet.  read more »

"Any neighborhood in Manhattan that is home to several warehouses including 'Tuck-It-Away self storage' definitely deserves to be called 'blighted.' This guy is a selfish joke. How inconsiderate Columbia must be to pay him millions of dollars for dilapadated warehouses and replace them with state of the art medical facilities, schools and dormitories. Shame on you, Columbia." ["Columbia Holdout: Eminent Domain 'Not Necessary or Appropriate'"]

The last remaining major private landowner in the footprint of Columbia University's planned West Harlem expansion issued a lengthy critique of the state's use of eminent domain to acquire his property, laying the groundwork for a legal battle that will likely lie ahead.

Nicholas Sprayregen, owner of Tuck-it-Away Storage, released the critique as the state today holds its second of two hearings on the proposed use of eminent domain. A wealthy landlord and developer who said he expects to fund a lengthy challenge, Mr. Sprayregen owns multiple warehouses in the footprint.

In the documents submitted to the Empire State Development Corporation today--the state agency that uses eminent domain--Mr.  read more »

The Presidential nominating conventions are now approaching, first the Democrats' and then the Republicans'. The President hangs out at the Olympics, stomps his feet over the Russian invasion of Georgia and then makes another pass at gutting the Endangered Species Act by reducing the time and scientific analysis needed to assess the environmental impact of federal projects. The energy and climate issue have provided some environmental content to this campaign, but the folks running the country still don't see the stake we have in environmental sustainability.

What does an extinct frog have to do with human well-being? What does the environment have to do with economic wealth? Can't our technology solve any environmental problem we make? The short answer, as we learned nearly half a century ago from Rachael Carson and Barry Commoner, is that everything is connected to everything else.  read more »

As summer heats up, our thoughts return to garbage--specifically New York City's garbage. As I've mentioned before, it would be hard to invent a more environmentally damaging, or more expensive system of waste management, than the one we use. To reiterate--in New York City we collect the garbage that residents place on the curb and then dump it on the floor of huge warehouses that tend to be located in low-income neighborhoods. We then scoop it up and load it on to trailer trucks and ship it far away--mostly to landfills (dumps), or waste-to-energy plants (incinerators). In the old days, when we had more vacant land in the city, we dumped the garbage in our own landfills.  read more »

For more than three years, Nicholas Sprayregen has kept his word to Columbia University.

The largest private landowner in the footprint of the university’s planned 17-acre West Harlem expansion, he has vowed time and again to fight the university’s attempts to oust him, so long as the school threatens the use of eminent domain.

Now, as the bulk of the area’s politicians have endorsed the expansion, community opposition has gone from a boil to a simmer and all but one other private-property owner has agreed to sell to the university, the fight’s final chapter is poised to be strictly a legal one between two parties: the university and Mr.  read more »

It seems the second blight study commissioned for Columbia University's planned West Harlem expansion did not come at extra cost to the state, as the Empire State Development Corporation's spokesman confirmed today that Columbia picked up the report's $217,000 tab.

The state's major development agency, ESDC, yesterday declared the 17-acre expansion footprint as blighted, a necessary step before using eminent domain. Prior to yesterday, it was unclear whether a blight study the state commissioned would have run into legal obstacles, as a state appellate court earlier in the week was critical of the state's use of contractor AKRF to complete the study.  read more »

The state's main development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, kicked off the public process for eminent domain for Columbia University's 17-acre West Harlem expansion today, starting a final chapter in the approvals for the contentious $7 billion initiative.

In announcing the process, ESDC President Avi Schick unveiled two unexpected nuggets of news surrounding the plan: yet another concession package from Columbia and a second blight study.

The concessions, which come on top of two multi-million dollar concession packages negotiated last year with Borough President Scott Stringer and then with the other local elected officials and members of the community, included $20 million for community development initiatives, $1 million for CUNY, a mobile dental center, and undergraduate scholarships.  read more »

The major landowner fighting Columbia University's expansion, Nick Sprayregen, today came out victorious over the state's Empire State Development Corporation today in an appellate court ruling on a case involving the Freedom of Information Law.

The case concerned the release of documents and correspondences between the state and its contractor AKRF, mostly surrounding the creation of a blight study (slated for release Thursday).

Mr. Sprayregen, represented by attorney Norman Siegel, defeated the state at the first level last year, with the court offering criticism that the same contractor, AKRF, was used for both the blight study and the environmental review.  read more »

Just when news started to slow for the summer on the development front, New York's Empire State Development Corporation dropped this bombshell in the agenda for its monthly meeting [PDF]: Columbia University "Land Use Improvement Project and Civic Project Findings."

Translation: the state will unveil the blight study, the first step in the use of eminent domain for Columbia's 17-acre West Harlem site.

The one major holdout left in the footprint is Nick Sprayregen, owner of Tuck-It-Away Self-Storage, which has numerous properties in the area. Mr. Sprayregen has bankrolled much of the opposition to the project, particularly on the legal front, and has previously vowed to challenge the use of eminent domain.  read more »

Hillary Clinton wasted no time in hitting the campaign trail as a surrogate for Barack Obama after their joint appearance earlier in the day, telling an auditorium of black teenagers that Obama sends "each and every one of you his best wishes."

Speaking Friday evening at Columbia University for the first graduation of The Eagle Academy For Young Men, a school she helped start, Clinton said, "Earlier today I had the great pleasure of being in a place called Unity, New Hampshire." She added, "We declared that we would go back together to Unity, New Hampshire to pledge our commitment, together, to change this country.  read more »

This week is graduation week here at Columbia and the campus has been hosting huge crowds of happy graduates and proud parents. I am reminded that in post-industrial New York City, education is a big business.  read more »

Students and other demonstrators who gathered in the main Quad of Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus yesterday were aware of the significance of the date they chose for their class walkout, a day after the 40th anniversary of the first in a wave of protests that rocked the campus in 1968.

Around noon, a couple of hundred students, professors and assorted other protesters gathered to hear anti-war speeches from several professors and a young Iraq war veteran. All around them, hundreds more students were sunbathing and playing frisbee on this warm April afternoon.  read more »

While New York City has terrific drinking water, many of us still buy and drink bottled water. Some resourceful types carry around reusable containers and fill them with tap water, but many of us buy new bottles water at the store, often once a day or more. My colleague Eleanor Sterling, the Director of Graduate Studies for Columbia’s Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology and the Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History, is the curator of a wonderful exhibit at the Museum called, “Water: H20 = Life." According to the bottled-water facts and figures presented in that exhibit:

Worldwide, 2.7 million tons of plastic are used each year to make water bottles, but in the U.S., less than 20 percent of these bottles are recycled.

The total estimated energy needed to make, transport, and dispose of one bottle of water is equivalent to filling the same bottle one-quarter full of oil.  read more »

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For all David Paterson's considerable charm and wit, his managerial style has been described by Democratic insiders as "jazz government." He is not into discipline. He's no good at firing people. His greatest political talent seems to be being in the right place at the right time.

But always walking one step behind Paterson now is his own éminence grise, Charles O'Byrne, an extremely intelligent, well-connected, tough and reclusive former Jesuit priest who as the governor's chief of staff will be one of the most powerful players in New York government. When the Spitzer governorship fell under the weight of the recent sensational sex scandal, Mr. O'Byrne became the gatekeeper of the new regime in Albany.  read more »

 Eric Gioia, a high-energy and ambitious thirty something city councilman from Queens, has decided to run a “carbon-neutral” relection campaign next year.

Gioia will eliminate paper invitations to campaign events, use only recycled paper when paper is used and cut down on mass mailers, balloons and buttons.

He also plans to purchase carbon offsets and use hybrid vehicles.

"There is a lot of waste on campaigns, and I think ... you have to recognize the impact you're having on the world around you," he told The New York Post a couple of days ago.

It's possible to have carbon-free events and products. Organizations such as Carbon Fund are now promoting Carbon-free businesses. The company's Web site describes its initiative as "an innovative and flexible program that can help your business to reduce its carbon footprint to zero through carbon offsets and reductions."

All of this has its value, helps build awareness and is a useful educational tool. But it’s a short-term band-aid when major surgery is required.  read more »

 Traditionally, there has been a trade-off perceived between protecting the environment and economic growth. But sustainability analysts reject this trade-off and argue that economic growth requires effective environmental stewardship. According to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, “green is the new red, white and blue.”

In his article “The Power of Green,” Friedman argues that green is not about cutting back. “It’s about creating a new cornucopia of abundance … It’s about getting our best brains out of hedge funds and into innovations that will not only give us the clean-power industrial assets to preserve our American dream but also give us the technologies that billions of others need to realize their own dreams without destroying the planet.”

That’s the goal of the Green-For-All campaign, which pushed Congress to provide $125 million to train 30,000 people a year in green trades. While I have reservations about the new federal Energy Independence Act of 2007—it did manage to authorize $125 million for the creation of a Green Jobs program, a worker-training program that helps poor people qualify for jobs in energy-efficient construction or the renewable power/biofuels industry.  read more »

From our real estate editor, Tom Acitelli:

I went to vote this morning at PS 162 at 109th and Broadway in Morningside Heights; I had to do one of those affidavit ballots in front of someone, and the elderly woman in front of me said, “I’ve been doing this for 10 years, and I’ve never seen so many young people.”

I hadn’t really noticed until then—but there were a lot of young people in line.

More than four years after the concept was first presented, and four months into the city’s public approval process, the Bloomberg administration’s plan to rezone 125th Street appears to be facing mounting opposition.

Numerous advocacy groups plan to critique the proposal at a City Planning Commission hearing scheduled for Jan. 30, and Manhattan’s Community Board 10 has been holding workshops that prepare residents to deliver testimony in preparation for the meeting.  read more »

The reaction to Wednesday's City Council approval of Columbia's 17-acre expansion into West Harlem is varied and robust, as expected. (Curbed runs down a lot of it here.)

The Observer's print edition this week looked back on the university's oft-controversial efforts to win support from Harlem residents and leaders for the expansion. It was not always pretty and never easy:  read more »

Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, knew from the get-go that in order to expand, he had to win over Harlem. He and his aides went to great lengths to get neighborhood leaders to see what a new campus could do for them.

Somehow, months or even years later, Harlem, or at least a vocal portion of it, is still not convinced. At a Dec. 12 City Council hearing, Mr.  read more »

In light of tomorrow’s expected City Council vote on Columbia University’s expansion plan, the Harlem group that is negotiating a community benefits agreement is trying to finalize beforehand a set of pledges for the school to make on issues such as affordable housing, education and job training.

The agreement, according to a source familiar with the negotiations, is all set except for one crucial element: the numbers were left blank.  read more »

Nick Sprayregen, one of the last property owners resisting Columbia’s expansion into West Harlem, has rarely had nice words to say about the university. But today, following a 50-minute meeting, it sounded like he had found new friends—or, more accurately, potential business partners.

“The subject of the conversation moved to my swap idea, and they were interested in discussing it, which was the whole point of them calling the meeting,” Mr.  read more »

Columbia University said today it was back-tracking on its plan to remove the Cotton Club at 656 West 125th Street and make way for a small park as part of its West Harlem expansion today after getting negative feedback. (Get it? Feedback?)  read more »

Nick Sprayregen and Columbia University, who have been staring each other down over the ownership of four properties in West Harlem, are going to talk again tomorrow, Mr. Sprayregen said.

It would be the first time in more than three years. At that time, Mr. Sprayregen made it clear he did not want to sell his properties to make way for the university’s expansion as long as Columbia was threatening eminent domain.  read more »

A reader forwarded me this email invitation from The Columbia Political Union, a faculty-student group at Columbia University:

Friendly Fire Series: Discussion with Former White House Correspondent Jeff Gannon
Wednesday, December 3rd at 7:00pm in the Harison Room, 2nd Floor, Faculty House

Gannon, you may recall, was that oddly credentialed fake White House reporter who also had a colorful side job.

Full email after the jump.  read more »

People around the country seem to be having such a blast with these community benefits agreements--pacts between private groups and developers to provide affordable housing and other benefits--but in New York, they are turning out to be such chores. The one at Atlantic Yards has been faulted as a meek deal arranged behind closed doors by Astroturf groups. So people up in Harlem promised to create a truly representative body to negotiate with Columbia University over benefits that the school would offer local residents as part of its expansion, and it's started to unravel in the final crucial weeks.

Or maybe not. Today, three members of the local development corporation are announcing they will resign from the body in protest of being shut out of the negotiations. But the lawyer representing the development corporation is suggesting that the loss of those three members may hasten completion of a community benefits agreement.

“Our mission is clear, our vision is clear. We are going to negotiate a community benefits agreement,” the lawyer, Jesse Masyr, said. “I think that you could make the argument that two out of the three members never really intended to fulfill the mission of the LDC.”

Mr. Masyr would not name which two members he was talking about.

One of the three who resigned is Nick Sprayregen, who owns four storage warehouses that would be taken over by the university to make way for its expansion. He had been fighting this summer to hold onto his seat, but is now going to voluntarily give his position up. The two other members are Tom DeMott, a tenant who lives near the expansion footprint and represents tenant associations, and Luisa Henriquez, who represents tenants in a city housing program living in the expansion footprint.  read more »

On Monday, as the City Planning Commission gave its nod to Columbia University, the school tried to give a little good news to West Harlem as well. Columbia promised to build another 160 housing units on its new campus to offset gentrification pressures its employees would bring to the surrounding neighborhood.  read more »

Columbia University’s proposed expansion plan received the City Planning Commission’s approval handily today, but it wasn’t as easy as some expected.

For one, there was the constant heckling of the commissioners before, during and after the meeting.  read more »

As the deadline for City Council action on Columbia University’s expansion comes closer, the local development corporation established to negotiate the all-important community benefits agreement has asked the school to donate an amount “well in excess of $100 million” toward creating more affordable housing in the neighborhood, according to an individual source familiar with the negotiations.

The affordable-housing fund is one of several outstanding issues, but may be the hardest to resolve before Dec. 19, when the Council breaks for the holidays. University spokeswoman La-Verna Fountain said Columbia would not comment on the negotiations.

The source said that the school, while it had not offered its own number, understood it had to contribute more, and in a more timely way, than the $20 million that Borough President Scott M. Stringer secured through an agreement in September.

“The way a friend put it, the borough president popped Columbia’s cherry.”  read more »

Columbia University pledged today to spend more than $32.5 million in West Harlem on affordable housing, a new park, landscaping for public housing complexes and the like. In return, the school’s expansion plan received the endorsement of Borough President Scott M. Stringer.

It was, if you think about it, a small investment to make, given that the new 17-acre campus, north of 125th Street and generally west of Broadway, is going to cost something like $6 billion.

President Bollinger, who shared the podium with Mr. Stringer at a press conference this afternoon in the borough president’s offices, said, however, “We want to do our part… This is not a trivial amount.”

Mr. Stringer’s endorsement is not binding; only the City Planning Commission, the City Council and the Mayor have a real say in rezoning. But it helps turn around a narrative that has been dominated by community opposition to the plan, including the local community board’s 31-2 vote against Columbia.

Some $20 million will be devoted to an affordable housing fund that will partially offset the indirect displacement that the new campus is expected to cause outside the footprint.

But given the fact that it costs, conservatively, somewhere around $400,000, and sometimes as much as $1 million, to build an affordable apartment in Manhattan, the contribution would only go so far in alleviating the indirect displacement. The draft environmental impact statement, for instance, says that “approximately 3,293” nearby residents would be forced out because of gentrification.

In addition, Columbia said it would turn a piece of its campus into a park, pay for its maintenance, and make other improvements around the area, including $11.25 million over 25 years to keep up a new waterfront part nearby.

Mr. Stringer said he would recommend against the use of eminent domain in the plan, but did not make that a condition of his support. (The university has already forsworn eminent domain to take residential property.)

Nick Sprayregen, owner of storage facilities in the footprint who could see his properties taken by eminent domain (albeit with "just compensation”), e-mailed to say, “Mr. Stringer is now in effect backing Columbia’s continued forced relocation of tenants and the threatened use of eminent domain against all who refuse to sell to Columbia with the threat of condemnation hanging over their heads.”

It doesn’t seem like the West Harlem Community Board cares much for anything: In August, they broadly rejected Columbia University’s proposal to expand. Thursday night, the Columbia Spectator reports, the board voted against a plan put forth by Nick Sprayregen, the property owner who has been fighting the university’s expansion effort, which would have rezoned his storage warehouses for residential, office and community uses.

“The longer, larger implications are unclear because there was an anticipation that the City Planning Commission was not going to vote in favor of the proposal in any case,” Richard Lipsky, Mr. Sprayregen’s lobbyist, told The Observer. He said that Mr. Sprayregen would continue to pursue the proposal.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver told a reporter for The New York Sun that Columbia University could be jeopardizing consideration for state money in the future with its insistence on inviting Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak today despite wide protest.  read more »

Columbia University is continuing to hammer away at the objections to its expansion plan as it goes under review, this week announcing that it found a spot to move 27 of the 132 households it would have to displace from buildings that it wants to take over for a new campus in West Harlem.

The school said it would construct a new 42-unit elevator building at 148th Street and Broadway—about a mile away from where the families are currently living—which would be large enough to accommodate the displaced families and then some.

The replacement housing has been virtually a precondition for getting the Bloomberg administration's backing on the expansion and the university has long pledged to find it. The tenants are participating in a city program known as Tenant Interim Lease, or TIL, in which renters in city-owned buildings can buy their buildings and turn them into co-ops. The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development said it agreed to the switch because it would take less time for Columbia to construct a new building than it would for the city to rehabilitate the old ones, which is a precondition for the turnover.  read more »

In a measure of just how much of an impression the Rev. Calvin O. Butts' statements Thursday night on NY1 made on Columbia University's president, Lee Bollinger, a spokeswoman has e-mailed to say:

President Bollinger has a longstanding relationship with Rev. Butts and was therefore surprised to hear his comments. But he has called the Reverend to find out what his concerns are. More generally over recent years and especially in recent months, Columbia has engaged in hundreds of meetings with community groups, associations, individuals and the Local Development Corporation in West Harlem in shaping its proposal for long-term growth in the old Manhattanville manufacturing zone.

The Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, the pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church, is starting to speak out against Columbia University’s expansion—which is exactly the opposite of what is supposed to be happening now that political consultant Bill Lynch is trying to get a coalition of local supporters together.

On NY1’s “Inside City Hall” last night, Rev. Butts said “Columbia is moving in a way that is really alientating a lot of the community members who have been really interested in working with them to develop a good plan, particularly in the area of affordable housing.”

We’re waiting to hear back from Mr. Lynch’s office and from Columbia.

Nick Sprayregen, the owner of Tuck-It-Away Self Storage, has become one of the biggest names, and deepest pockets, among opponents of Columbia University’s expansion plan for West Harlem.

So what’s he doing making a peace offering? And why is he doing it through the press?

Mr. Sprayregen is proposing that he give up three of his buildings that are right smack-dab in the center of the 17-acre area where the Ivy League school wants to create a third campus. In exchange, he wants the university to give him two pieces of land that it already owns on the eastern edge of the site.

Errol Louis mentioned the idea in passing in the Daily News last week. On Monday, Mr. Sprayregen told us a bit more:  read more »