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Silicon Alley U

By Matt Chaban 1/24 5:53pm

Silicon Alley U

Thumbs up. (Morphosis)

Tech Tronic: BP Stringer Approves Cornell’s Roosevelt Island Campus, Wants More Red Buses

The public review process known as ULURP, through which most every large-scale development in the city must pass, is rarely an easy one. New York created the NIMBY, and ULURP is about the only way Joe Public can even pretend to influence such projects as Columbia or NYU’s new campuses, the Hudson Yards redevelopment, Riverside South, the Kingsbridge Armory, Chelsea Market… the list of contentious projects goes on and on. A better acronym for the Uniform Land-use Review Process might well be DIVISIVE.

That is what makes CornellNYC, the upstate university’s Roosevelt Island tech campus, such an interesting anomaly. After beating out Stanford in a breathless deathmatch for Mayor Bloomberg’s blessing to build the campus, the project has so far sailed through ULURP with nary a protest. Back in December, the campus was approved by the local community board (typically a bastion of browbeating), and now Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer gave the new campus his enthusiastic thumbs up. Read More

By Matt Chaban 12:25pm

Silicon Alley U

Eric Schmidt digs Roosevelt Island. (Matt Chaban)

Google’s Eric Schmidt Loves FDR, Thinks Cornell Will Gentrify Roosevelt Island

It wasn’t all politicos and power brokers at the ribbon cutting for the FDR Four Freedoms Park gathered at the tip of Roosevelt Island earlier this week. Cornell had a strong showing, too, since their new tech campus will be the park’s neighbor to the north within a few years. Cornell president and jockey David Skorton was there, and so was Eric Schmidt, the Google executive chairman who is serving on a three-man advisory panel for the campus.

Wearing a natty tweed blazer and jaunty blue scarf, Mr. Schmidt was wandering just south of the sloping lawn, near the massive bust of the 32nd president that is a centerpiece of the park, when The Observer caught up with him. “I would say first it’s probably the most beautiful new public structures in America today, it’s so visually arresting,” Mr. Schmidt said. He thought is was a stunning space both to look at and to look out from. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/15/12 12:01am

Silicon Alley U

5 Photos

Cornell's Island of Tech

For Its Roosevelt Island Tech Campus, Cornell Pursues Some Cutting-Edge Designs by Thom Mayne and SOM

When technology changes at the speed of a microprocessor or the flicker of a screen, in the time it takes to type in a password or hit send on an email, how can buildings be created to contain all this light-speed innovation? That is the quandry confronting the architects designing Cornell and Technion University’s news campus on Roosevelt Island.

“Google didn’t exist 25 years ago, Facebook didn’t exist 25 years ago, even AOL didn’t exist 25 years ago,” Andrew Winters said on a recent afternoon. The director of capital projects and planning for Cornell NYC Tech, he was giving a preview of the the school’s proposed Roosevelt Island campus in a large conference room inside the Wall Street offices of SOM, the master planners for the 12.5-acre project. Thom Mayne, the Pritzker Prize-winning L.A. architect designing the first academic building on the campus was also present, along with a number of other Cornell construction executives.

“The challenge,” Mr. Winters continued, “is how do you create a tech campus today that is still flexible enough to grow and evolve for the next 25 years?” Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/20/12 10:35am

Silicon Alley U

Brooklyn's DIY tech campus. (Steiner Studios/NYT)

Techies on a Hill: City’s Third Tech Campus, at Old Brooklyn Navy Yards Hospital, Unveiled

Back in the Spring, The Observer traveled to Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where Doug Steiner is working on building the biggest movie studio outside of Hollywood. Part of that plan is building a new media-tech campus, including a new grad school for Brooklyn College’s film program that is already under construction in old radio building at the foot of Washington Avenue.

The marquee feature is a 20 acre satellite for Carnegie Mellon University, to be located on the site of a former naval hospital. On Friday, The Times revealed both a rendering of the project and the fact that the city and Steiner Studios were close to a deal for redeveloping the property. Read More

By Matt Chaban 5/16/12 4:47pm

Silicon Alley U

This place is teaming with baddies. (Cornell)

The Evil Eye! Israel Boycott Comes to Roosevelt Island As BDS Movement Targets Tech Campus

After they came after our hummus, it was only a time before they came for our mobile app engineers.

Anti-Israeli groups set on depriving New York of two of its most important commodities have moved on from the dowdy old Park Slope Food Co-op to the shiny new Roosevelt Island tech campus. What do both have in common? A commitment to the environment and Israeli imports. Curbed has spotted a new group, New Yorkers Against Cornell-Technion, dead set on stopping the new tech campus, Mayor Bloomberg’s biggest achievement since the smoking ban, because of the affiliations of Cornell’s lesser-known (on these shores) partner.

According to the New Yorkers Against Cornell-Technion’s website, Technion is complicit in every nefarious Israeli deed from the settlements to circumcision. Read More

By Matt Chaban 2/28/12 10:52am

Silicon Alley U

18 Photos

Bohilin Cywinski Jackson

Roosevelt Renderers! Top Architects Tapped to Design Cornell Tech Campus

The innovation offered by a new tech campus on Roosevelt Island is not limited to New York’s technology sector but the design one, as well. Almost every bid had soaring renderings and flashy flythroughs, most notably the winning entry from Cornell. Now the upstate university has announced six of the world’s top firms, including a few local favorites, are in the running to design the new tech campus. Read More