Columbia

On Tuesday, the Empire State Development Corporation held its first public hearing on its outline for Columbia's 17-acre expansion into West Harlem.

One of the first speakers was the daughter, a senior in high school, of the Singh family, owner of a gas station at 129th Street. The gas station is one of two hold-out properties still at odds with Columbia; Nick Sprayregen's storage company is the other.

"If Columbia has to take [our property] away using eminent domain, I am sad to say, our future is looking very grim," the Singh daughter told the audience at City College.  read more »

Nick Sprayregen, the landowner leading the final hold-out against Columbia's 17-acre West Harlem expansion, has an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal. In it, Mr. Sprayregen (profiled by The Observer in July) attacks Columbia's threatened use of eminent domain to take his storage company's property.

In the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the government is permitted to take private property only for "public use."

This clause was once limited to true public projects such as the construction of highways, fire houses and public libraries. But over the last 50 years it has been bastardized by the powerful (in collusion with compliant politicians and the acquiescence of the courts) into a weapon used routinely to forcibly take other people's property for nonpublic uses. What is occurring in West Harlem today is a prime example of this abuse.

The gentrification train keeps roaring its way up to Harlem and Morningside Heights, or should we say "SoCo."

Today Curbed posted two items that spell trouble or progress, depending on your point of view. W Hotel's parent company Starwood is building a branch of its new Aloft brand on Frederick Douglass Bpulevard and 124th Street. Aloft Harlem is slated to open in June 2010 next to an old carriage house that perhaps not coincidentally was long-rumored to be the site of a W hotel before it was recently converted to lofts.

And if the 125th Street rezoning, a luxury boutique hotel chain, and Columbia's expansion were not enough to seal upper Manhattan's fate, brokers have coined a pretentiously trendy name to attract young people to the nabe: "SoCo."  read more »

About 100 people turned up at a rally in Harlem on Saturday aimed at blocking the Bloomberg administration’s plan to rezone 125th Street to allow for denser residential and commercial development. But the rally quickly turned into an omnibus protest about everything from Columbia’s Harlem expansion to Robert Mugabe’s teetering government in Zimbabwe.

The Coalition to Save Harlem planned to create a human chain stretching across 125th Street from Second Avenue to Broadway. In the end, “Hands Across Harlem” only spanned about one block of the area to be rezoned, from Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard to Lenox Avenue, though we heard one organizer remark that it was a “pretty good turnout.”  read more »

Last night, at Columbia's journalism school, Joanne Lipman said that three years ago she got a call from Si Newhouse. She met with him, had lunch, and loved the conversation so much she would have been perfectly satisfied with her life even if she'd been struck by a truck on her way out the door of his apartment building.  read more »

Columbia University has closed on the purchase of a lot in West Harlem, with plans to build an apartment building that would house residents displaced by its 17-acre expansion into the neighborhood, property records show.  read more »

The city Planning Commission voted early this afternoon to approve the expansion of Columbia University into West Harlem. The vote was 10 to 1, with one abstention. The plan next moves to the City Council for approval or rejection.

We'll have more on the Planning Commission vote very soon.

The land-use committee of Community Board 9 voted on Wednesday evening to oppose Columbia University’s expansion into West Harlem. The committee wants a number of conditions met before it supports the Columbia plan, including the construction of low-income housing and certain environmental issues. The Times has more at its City Room blog.

A full Community Board vote’s scheduled for Monday.  read more »

Finally! It seems that Columbia University, after talking about its Manhattanville expansion for almost five years now, has got its act together and is taking the plunge. The land-use review process is expected to begin as soon as Monday, which means that in seven months the City Council will vote it up or down--no ifs, ands or buts. The community board is none too happy about the timetable though, since it means that the first part of the review, when it gets to weigh in with its two cents, will take place during the summer, when people are likely to be on vacation.  read more »

In a press conference in a faculty room at the Low Memorial Library, it was just announced that John W. Kluge has pledged $400 million to Columbia University, his alma mater (Class of '37). It will be a gift from his estate, half of which will go to the college. Mr. Kluge—who was in attendance along with unviersity Preisdent Lee Bollinger—said that the money is too be used to make the university more international.

"The reason that I'm doing this is because I believe in it," said the 92-year-old Mr. Kluge. Mr. Kluge has already donated over $100 million to the unversity to help with financial aid. This gift will continue this work, but with a focus on foreign students. "I look forward to Columbia having more global students. And what better city than the city of New York?"

Mr. Bollinger, whose expansion plans have been attacked recently, made it clear that this money is not in any way tied to his proposed Manhattanville expansion—although it could be used for that down the line.

"The gift will go towards the globalization and internationalization of the university" said Mr. Bollinger. "I'm not interested in buildings. I'm interested in minds."

McSweeney’s Fun(ny) Facts    read more »

McSweeney’s Fun(ny) Facts    read more »

Attention, Columbia University students! Get ready to stand in line.

Chipotle, the wildly popular Denver-based burrito chain, will open a 2,800-square-foot outpost at 110th Street and Broadway in late July. The fast-food restaurant will be located on the northwest corner where the short-lived Casbah Rouge, a Moroccan restaurant, once sat. (It will also be across Broadway from a new luxury condo, diagonally across Broadway from a D'Agostino's grocery, and across 110th from a 24-hour Rite Aid that sells automatic ice-crushers. Ah, gentrified Morningside Heights; you look more and more like the Upper West Side with each passing year.)

Chipotle landed in the city in August 2003 with a store at 150 East 44th Street, and the line has been out the door ever since. The Columbia location will be the 16th outlet in the city, according to Katharine Smith, Chipotle's east coast PR person

There may be an extra treat in store for the Columbia student body. According to Ms. Smith, when Chipotle opens a new restaurant, it usually hosts either a fundraiser for a local non-profit or...wait for it...A FREE BURRITO DAY!

"We try and become a part of the community as soon as possible," Ms. Smith told The Real Estate on Friday afternoon.

It's safe to say that Chipotle would be welcomed to the neighborhood with open arms if they went with the latter option.

- Mark Wellborn

Taking stock of plan to expant Columbia Univerisity's campus uptown, lobbyist Richard Lipsky is criticizing what he says is a possible conflict of interest among some key principles, including Harlem powerhouse Bill Lynch.

On his website, Lipsky writes that among other possible actions, critics of the plan "will be calling for an investigation of any conflicts of interest between elected officials on the LDC [local development corporation] and Bill Lynch, recently hired by Columbia to represent the university's interest."

I just got off the phone with Bill Lynch, who said the argument is pretty weak.

"Well I don't see how we have any conflict of interest," he said. "We've been hired by Columbia University to do outreach to the community and that's what we've done."

When asked about the elected officials in the area, Lynch said, "I know them all, but I don't have any official relationship with them."

Which, he said, leaves him a little puzzled as to what the problem is.

"I'm not a lawyer," Lynch said. "My lawyers tell me it's not a conflict of interest. It looks like they're grasping for straws. That's what it looks like to me."

-- Azi Paybarah

Xeniz Viray, 23, lives near Jackson Street and Graham Avenue in Williamsburg. Ms.  read more »

Are private libraries still part of the property dream?  read more »

This is sort of random, but the Columbia Spectator has an opinion piece by one student which (vaguely) echoes the debate about banning cell phones in public schools.

"Columbia University should ban laptops in classrooms, or at least ban them until students learn how to use them correctly."

The full article is here.

-- Azi Paybarah

After 20 months on the market, the labyrinthine and ornate parlor-floor apartment in the Berwind Man  read more »

Despite the simmering town-gown tensions in Upper Manhattan, the Cuban restaurant La Floridita, is expanding into a space next-door that is also owned by Columbia University, fully knowing that the Ivy League school will eventually take over both locations. The restaurant's owner, "seated in the shade of a plastic palm tree," tells the Columbia Spectator:

Based on how Columbia is treating me and is dealing with me, I don't feel apprehension.... I feel confident that I will be offered a space in the expansion zone.

All of which proves, if you can't stand the heat, duck under a plastic palm tree.

- Matthew Schuerman

It was more than two years ago, over a couple of beers at the West End in Morningside Heights, that  read more »

Noam Chomsky's assistant comments below that there is an illness in the linguist's family and that's why he had to run, to make a plane back to Boston. Also I note that Chomsky gave good weight at an earlier event at Columbia the same day. I'm feeling bad about the meanspiritedness of my original post. Not the substance, but the sniggeringly oedipal tone. Chomsky has my apology for that.

To the Editor:    read more »

Donald Trump Responds   To the Editor:    read more »

Donald Trump Responds   To the Editor:    read more »

• Fed leaves interest rates unchanged.
[NY Times]
• Vornado-led group plans to raise Equity Office bid.
[NY Times]
• 5,000-seat amphiteater for Coney Island?
[NY Post]
• Find bargain surprises in Manhattan housing.
[NY Post]
• Stipe buys Affleck's (Casey's, not Ben's) Tribeca penthouse.
[NY Post]
• Feds slap two WTC site contractors with violations.
[Daily News]
• Fulton Transit hub to have 24,000 commercial feet.
[Daily News]
• Blight study may help Columbia's Harlem expansion.
[NY Sun]
• A look at Lower Manhattan's Charles Maikish.
[NY Sun]
• More on Lower Manhattan's revitalization.
[NY Sun]
• Assessment letters upset city homeowners.
[NY Sun]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

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Hudson Square Grabs Viacom Lease "Media behemoth Viacom has a lease out for as much as 250,000 square feet at 345 Hudson Street in the long-struggling commercial area of Soho's Hudson Square." New York Sports Club Parent Leases in Penn Plaza "Take that, Equinox! Town Sports, which controls omnipresent gym New York Sports Club, has found its new headquarters. Town Sports will move into a 28,000-square-foot home at 5 Penn Plaza." Go to Commercial Breaks by John Koblin. Bank Branches Disappearing? What Corner You Live On? "Not long ago, some retail brokers were predicting a sort of cataclysmic bubble-bursting for the city's seemingly never-ending bank-branch boom. At least at street level, these forecasts of a recession in the recent retail-leasing dominance of banks appear quite premature." Go to Counter Espionage by Chris Shott. Moses Envy: Caro, Columbia Battle Over The Ghost of Moses "Sometime last fall, the biographer Robert Caro got a phone call from Roger Hertog, vice chairman of Alliance Capital Management and a rich and powerful New York City history buff. Columbia was planning a big exhibit on Robert Moses, New York's master builder from the mid-20th century, and he wanted to know if Mr. Caro would give a lecture as part of it. It was the first time, Mr. Caro said, that he had heard from anyone connected to the massive three-part exhibit opening next week, 'Robert Moses and the Modern City,' which includes among its backers noted historian Kenneth T. Jackson." Go to story by Matthew Schuerman. Johnson & Johnson Heiress Libet Sells Last Trump Condo for $18.5M "After a five-year wait, heiress Libet Johnson has finally sold off the brassiest penthouse in the brassiest tower in town. According to city records, she parted with Penthouse 51-B at Trump International on Central Park West for $18.5 million." Andre to Wally: Comfort Can Be Dangerous! "Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg, the exceedingly literary local power couple, have bought the duplex penthouse in a West 23rd Street brownstone near 10th Avenue. According to city records, they paid $2,158,530." Go to Manhattan Transfers by Max Abelson. Sky-High Property Taxes Give Renters the Shaft "Renters, beware! You are about to get shafted--thanks to property taxes. For many years now, rental landlords (and commercial-building owners) have been paying disproportionately more in property taxes; and they often pass these higher taxes on to tenants through higher rents." Go to The Lab by Tom Acitelli.

CNN's "Situation Room" tonight sought to dispel the rumor that has started that Barack Obama attended a "madrasah" in Indonesia as a boy. The show reported that Obama has written in his autobiography that he attended a Muslim school for two years. But that's not a madrasah!

I beg to differ. Two weeks ago I attended a lecture on development in the Arab world at the 92d Street Y. The lecturer was Saifedean Ammous, a Palestinian graduate student in international studies at Columbia. A woman in the audience asked Ammous about all those terrible madrasah's that Arabs send their children to. Ammous answered that "madrasah" simply means school in Arabic, and he attended a Quaker madrasah in Ramallah.

I asked him about the point today; and Ammous emailed me:

The term Madrasah simply means school, and is used exactly as in English, so you could use it to refer to a Jewish, Christian or Islamic Madrasah, as well as a public, private, elementary or secondary Madrasah. In the English language, and due to the amount of coverage that some of these schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan have been getting over the last few years, the term Madrasah has been associated with religious schools that supposedly indoctrinate and train terrorists.

Obama clearly went to a Madrasah in Indonesia, in that he clearly went to a school... Even if he did go to a religious school, that almost certainly doesn't mean that it was a place where they learned Koran and not Chemistry. In all likelihood it was an Islamic school inasmuch as Catholic schools in America are Catholic: a regular school teaching all the regular subjects, but putting a little extra emphasis on religion and the morality of its students.

I highly doubt that he had gone to what are known as "radical madrasas", I don't even know if they are common in Indonesia, and can imagine that his family, who seem largely secular, would've wanted to make sure their kid studies math and science.

Lefty Jew Jeffrey Blankfort offers the same diagnosis as I have for the tepidness of the antiwar movement, the absence of Jews from the vanguard this time round.

Historically, [Jews] have funded the Left... They were the major funders of the Civil Rights Movement. They were the funders of the anti-war movement during the Viet Nam War. If people were arrested, and they needed bail, progressive Jews provided the bail, and the lawyers were mostly Jewish... Going back into the thirties, you have Jews active in the unions, active in every radical movement. That's the tradition I grew up in. It no longer exists. As a matter of fact, it's been erased from Jewish history. Young Jews growing up in America today have no idea of the Jewish radical past in this country.

Blankfort points to the same problem I have pointed to, the Israel lobby, which saw crushing Iraq as in Israel's interest. But I'd like to throw in another factor: class. Since Vietnam, Jews have risen dramatically in American society. My people are now implicated in the power structure in ways we never imagined in the '60s. Back then Jews who joined the antiwar movement thought of themselves as outsiders in American life. Most of the white Columbia U. radicals, for instance Mark Rudd, the late Ted Gold, the imprisoned David Gilbert, Bob Feldman—were Jewish kids from middle class backgrounds who felt alienated from a warmaking establishment.

Rudd, born Rudnitsky (his dad changed the name to advance in the military), writes in an essay on the Jewishness of the radicals:

What outraged me and my comrades so much about Columbia, along with its hypocrisy, was the air of genteel civility. Or should I say gentile? Despite the presence of so many Jews in the faculty and among the students.. the place was dripping with goyishness... We were peasant children right out of the shtetls of New Jersey and Queens screaming, "You want to know the truth about Columbia University, they're a bunch of liberal imperialists! " Morally and emotionally we could not fit into the civilized world of the racist, defense-oriented modern university. Such was our ordeal of civility.

Today's Jewish world is not the shtetl. We have assimilated, we are the American success story. Morally and emotionally, Jewish kids tend to identify with blue-state powers-that-be. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions that prove the rule: as a body we have little class interest in challenging the assumptions of the (corrupt!) ruling class that got us into this disastrous war.

"We're not about to turn 125th Street into 42nd Street or Wall Street," one participant in a public hearing on Wednesday night said.

Ahem. Isn't it sort of that way already?

The Columbia Spectator reports some resistance to the city's plan to make 125th Street more commercial and to create an "arts and entertainment sub-district." - Matthew Schuerman

A few weeks back at Columbia, I watched with amazement as the former Israeli soldier Yehuda Shaul, who started the group Breaking the Silence, gave his presentation on the horrors of the occupation to about 75 students in a darkened hall. My amazement had to do with the fact that Shaul's visit was sponsored by a largely-Jewish group at Columbia—Pro-Israel Progressives—and was attended by members of the Hillel chapter at the school. Kudos to them.

After Shaul's speech, representing "my comrades and not just myself," he was bombarded by hostile questions from Israel supporters in the audience. Shaul handled them with strength and ease. (Q. "Do you know of a counterpart organization where Palestinians question their moral decisions?" A. "I really don't care—I am an Israeli who has to raise his children in Israel...")

Just as gripping to me was the discussion that took place after the event between Rachel Glaser, the campus coordinator of the rightwing Zionist Organization of America, and the students who had organized the event.

"What did this accomplish? What did it accomplish?" Glaser barked at the organizers.

"It achieved something important," one of the Jewish students said. "People perceive pro-Israel groups as monolithic. They think that we are not able to take responsibility for the bad things that happen."

Fine, Glaser said, but the students should have organized "a panel," in which Shaul was just one voice. "Have someone else," she said. (Just as the New York Theatre Workshop wanted to "contextualize" the Rachel Corrie play with pro-Israel voices.)

It was one thing to have Yehuda Shaul give a talk inside Israel, Glaser said. "Outside of Israel, you're playing with fire."

This chilling statement was a candid expression of the goals of the Israel lobby. A member of a Jewish organization was saying that it's OK to have a wide-open discussion of these issues in Israel, but it's dangerous to have such a discussion here. Why? Because America is the mainstay of support allowing Israel to continue its policies in the Occupied Territories. The Israel lobby fears that Americans, if left to their own devices, will abandon Israel, out of indifference, or antisemitism. So Americans must be influenced—in this case by having the information they get about Israel/Palestine vetted, and by pressuring Jews on campus to toe the party line.

I bring this up because Glaser's group, the Zionist Organization of America, is now trying to have the Jewish group that sponsored Shaul's tour, the Union of Progressive Zionists, kicked out of a consortium of campus groups that promote Israel's image on campuses. Why? Because (per the Jewish Telegraphic Agency) "Jewish money should not be spent on programming that provides fodder for Israel's most virulent critics."

This is shameful news. Jews are better than this, America is better than this...

Debbie Newman, most recently an intern for the Daily News' Rush & Malloy gossip column and freelancer at Life & Style, will be the next editor of Jossip.com.

Since late September, when former Jossip editor Corynne Steindler left the media and celebrity gossip site for the New York Post's Page Six column, Jossip publisher David Hauslaib has been doing the daily blogging duties. Now, Newman will take over on Dec. 27.

Newman, a 24-year-old Columbia Universtiy graduate, said that she spoke to Hauslaib about the job after bumping into him at a Reuters-sponsored panel.

"She's really coming to the table with much more than you'd assume from the average intern at a gossip column," said Hauslaib. "She really understands the media business and the industry."

Newman has also been a research assistant to gossip-publishing saboteurix Kitty Kelley. This will be her first foray into blogging.

Newman said that blogging daily seemed "ambitious," but "not too overwhelming."

"I wish I was a little tech-savvier," she said, "but I can learn as I go on." --Michael Calderone

Columbia University research scholar and former White House aide Gary Sick discusses "Is a U.S. Military Clash with Iran Inevitable?" at the Columbia Club.

The newly appointed board of the Chinatown/Lower East Side Empire Zone will hold their first meeting.

The National Press Club in DC hosts "Hillary and the Presidency: Ethics, Policy and 'Bill.'"

Malcolm Smith announces upcoming legislative meeting on police procedures and community relations in response to the shooting of Sean Bell at Thomasina's in St. Albans, Queens.

Stephen Berger discusses the NYS Commission on Health Care's report on hospital closings at the Grand Hyatt.

Silda Wall Spitzer, Christine Quinn and Joel Klein speak at the Second Annual Hispanic Education Summit at Baruch College.

NYC DOT and Transportation Alternatives unveil new signs and pavement markings to promote safe cycling on Grand Street and East Broadway.

The New York State Urban Development Corporation meets at Empire State Development Corporation headquarters.

Carolyn Ho, mother of Lt. Ehren Watada, charged with refusing to deploy to Iraq, holds a press conference with peace activists at Church Center in UN Plaza.

Peter King keynotes New York Institute of Technology's conference on "Homeland Security: Safety, Immigration and Port Security" at the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury.

—Nicole Brydson

Spitzer’s First Test  read more »

Spitzer’s First Test    read more »

Spitzer’s First Test    read more »

Spitzer’s First Test    read more »

Our reporter Gillian Reagan is up at Columbia, outside the Lecture Hall where students have been confronted for cheating on an etchics exam. Some students have now left the session. The journalism school administration has asked its journalism students not to talk to journalists. No students confessed to cheating at the exam. The administration received a tip-off email. The activity the administration found suspicious is that the test—which is a take-home short essay test—was returned by at least one student in only 32 minutes.

Rep. Charlie Rangel, speaking at a Crain's breakfast in midtown this morning, shared his thoughts on the draft and some Ivy League students.

"I spoke about the draft at Columbia, Harvard and Brown. These kids don't even know there's a war in Iraq."

It doesn't sound like he's ready to let go of the issue any time soon, despite the near-unanimous lack of support he's received for a proposal to reinstate the draft. And Rangel, a decorated war veteran, will have the ability to make things increasingly uncomfortable for his newly empowered Democratic colleagues every day that goes by without a coherent alternative position on how to deal with Iraq.

-- Azi Paybarah

Last night at Columbia's school of international affairs, Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector, and former Marine, opened a speech about Iran bracingly, by speaking not of Iran but about the "elephant in the room": Israel. He said that Israel is our close ally; and if Iran actually intends to develop nuclear weapons, not nuclear power (as the Iranian Ambassador had said, in the speech preceding Ritter's), and if Iran fails to repudiate Ahmedinejad's hateful rhetoric about Israel, well then, Israel's "legitimate national security concerns" are ours, and could even bring war. After all, Ritter said, one nuclear strike on an Israeli city and the small country would be deeply and permanently damaged.

The great thing about Ritter's speech, before an ambivalent UWS audience, was its bluntness. In that sense, his rhetoric reflected an important lesson of the Iraq war (which Ritter had opposed). We all know, or we ought to by now, that concern for Israel's security played a role in America's disastrous war plans. Yet as Philip Zelikow of the 9/11 commission has said, It was an agenda that dare not speak its name. It was generally cloaked in language about bringing democracy to the Middle East that reporters who knew better parroted. This lack of straightforwardness has damaged the country. It has corrupted our journalism and our thinktanks, it has caused enormous bitterness and mistrust—and justifiably. The feeling many Americans now have that they were lied to about the causes of one of the greatest mistakes in our history is going to echo through our lives for a long time...

I think the lack of straightforwardness reflected Jewish fears of antisemitism; that if a Christian nation was actually put to the test, and the alliance with Israel actually cost American lives, the American people would abandon Israel. And so the Middle East Forum likes to put up feel-good billboards saying, Israel's interest is also the American interest, and Israeli Ambassador Arens likes to say as he did in the Times yesterday that 9/11 put us and you in the same boat, got that? But attack Saddam in part because he has threatened Israel? Friends of Israel don't like to say that. They fear that the average American would do as Borat says they would do—and throw the Jews down the well. Thus: the Israel lobby, which acts to shield the issue from open public debate.

Last night, Ritter said, We're not going to abandon "my good friend, the state of Israel," and I'm going to put that agenda right on the table. Very post-Iraq. I wanted to hug him. Such transparency is essential, when we try to sort out what we're talking about when we talk about Iran.

Of course the sequel to all this is that in identifying this interest baldly, we get to scrutinize it, everyone gets to weigh in, even Americans who are appalled by Israel's racialism and militarism. Last night Ritter said that Israel is out of control, "drunk with hubris, arrogance and power." Jimmy Carter says in a book published tomorrow that Israel's policies in the West Bank are apartheid. And John Mearsheimer says that this small country's policies are hurting our standing throughout the Arab world, and America should therefore insist that Israel change its policies, and we should use our full powers to make that happen; and if Israel fails to heed us, change the relationship. There's a word for what Ritter, Carter and Mearsheimer are doing: discussing.

Columbia prof and Chelsea architect Steven Holl, whose difficulties with Denver led him to drop out of a courthouse commission last month, just revealed a plan for an outer-district mixed-use center on the outskirts of Copenhagen, atop a regional rail network -- the point being that you can put high-density projects outside downtown as long as you have transit.

"It's tempting to imagine such lovely forms in the South Bronx, eastern Queens or even New Jersey, with links to airports and office-park suburbs," Alec Applebaum writes on StreetsBlog, "but it's hard to move this image beyond fantasy until the city gets serious about concentrating new development near transit hubs in under-built areas."

Read also the comments to Applebaum's post, which betray a suspicion of large lawns. For more pictures, check out the website for T-Husene. A reading knowledge of Danish is helpful.  read more »

- Matthew Schuerman

West Harlem business owners opposed to Columbia University's proposed expansion have sued the Empire State Development Corporation to get information over the planned use of eminent domain, the Columbia Spectator reports. What makes this special, apparently, is that the group had received similar information in the past without all of this fuss. Of course, maybe the state economic development agency learned from the last time that it released information like that. UPDATE: Curbed has an internal memo stating that Columbia's B-school would be part of the first wave of gentrification under the university's expansion. - Matthew Schuerman

When young whippersnappers arrive at medical school in the fall of their first year, it’s not  read more »

When young whippersnappers arrive at medical school in the fall of their first year, it’s not unco  read more »

Famous Jack Kerouac, Dizzy Gillespie, and Joe College hangout the West End Café has officially reopened for business--"about five minutes ago," a publicist told The Observer late Thursday afternoon.

Albeit with a slightly altered moniker: Havana Central at the West End.

Dig it: Kerouac's favorite burger joint will begin serving Cuban cuisine next month, under the direction of new owner and Columbia U. grad Jeremy Merrin.

The historic Upper West Side bar--notoriously divided by the sign "Pigs over there, students over here," during the late '60s Columbia riots--was originally scheduled to reopen in September but got delayed by "construction complications," according to the Columbia Spectator.

The newly refurbished venue will commemorate its Beat-poet past with readings of Kerouac's On The Road and Allen Ginsberg's Howl next Friday night.

Full beboppin' event details after the jazzy jump.  read more »

- Chris Shott

The Jack Sprat Law  read more »

Amid all the complaints from community boards about getting overwhelmed by rampant development that they cannot keep track of, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stronger hit upon one solution: Get students to do it!

This fall, the Beep recruited 13 graduate students in urban planning programs at Hunter, Columbia, Rutgers, New York University and the New School to advise community boards on specific projects. The students, working a minimum of 15 hours a week, will receive stipends of $2,500 a semester, which should give them a taste of the salaries of real-life urban planners.

-Matthew Schuerman

Claudette Bakhtiar and Lars Ericson   Met: Jan. 2005 Engaged: March 2006  read more »

The Affair Restaurant is the setting—or one of the settings—for that stage of adultery that come  read more »

A good exposé is irresistible, especially if it reveals the ugly side of something pretty and  read more »