Oberlin vs. Columbia (Tumblr)

Gasp! Shock! Quelle horreur! Did you know that Columbia University students--those fine, Ivy League men and women who only occasionally offer to have sex for money on Sugar Daddy websites in order to pay their tuition--are stealing directly from their institution? It's true! Every week, thousands of dollars goes missing from the coffers at Columbia, and the financial sinkhole's location has finally been tracked to the dining hall, where students are stealing Nutella at a cost of $5,000 a week.

Then again, that's small potatoes compared to those kids at Oberlin who are dressing as Klan members and defacing property with racial slurs, because what?

More on the devastating blow to Columbia's funds thanks to fiending undergrads who just can't get enough of that sweet, sweet hazelnut spread:

According to The Post:

No one expected the Ivy Leaguers to wolf down the snack at the rate of what could cost $260,000 a year.

The problem is that undergrads are not just filling up while in the cafeterias. They’s pilfering it to eat elsewhere.

“Students have been filling cups of Nutella to-go in Ferris Booth Commons,” one of the campus eateries, Dunn said. “And taking the full jars out of John Jay [dining hall], which means we’re going through product faster than anticipated.”

Though as the article is quick to mention, it costs every student $2,363 to eat in the dining halls per semester, which equals $5,260 a year. And since there are 5,000 students who eat in the dining halls every day, that means the total Columbia profit just from their basic meal plan is $26,300,000. That number might actually be higher, seeing as the undergrad meal plan basically forces them to pay for at least 15 meals a week, with two of the three options requiring the payment of 19 meals in the dining hall paid out ahead of time, whether they end up eating them or not.

We think they can afford the hypothetical $260,000 to keep their Italian spread a little less thin, huh?

So this Nutella theft ring seems relatively mild, especially when compared to say, Oberlin College in Ohio, where students have the choice after the first semester to opt out of the dining plan and work in a food co-op, but are still pissed enough to dress like Klan members* outside the Afrikan Heritage House, write anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric on bathroom walls and posters, and basically be the worst people ever, possibly all in an effort to prove some point about free speech. Maybe. Or maybe just to get the day off from classes.

It's tough to explain what would motivate someone to rile up the super-P.C. Oberlin crunchy community unless you actually went there, or happened to read stumble on the Oberlin MicroAgressions Tumblr. Actually, that gives you a pretty good sense of it. Then again, the idea that the perpetrators were part of the MultiCultural Resource Center and wrote all of these hateful things because they were making some sort of statement about how an actual hate crime would make people feel and also we all have the right to do whatever we want (that's what the First Amendment is, correct?) is another good tip-off.

Maybe they just need more Nutella.

*Or just "a lady wrapped in a blanket," or possibly, "a ghost."

An unusual lecture (Vimeo)

And it just gets better from there...

"Hughes remained in the fetal position on the floor as two people dressed as ninjas blindfolded two stuffed animals and impaled one of them with a sword...The students at first encouraged Hughes to dance to the music that was playing as he stripped, but then were dismayed when footage of the Twin Towers collapsing and wartime Nazi Germany began rolling..."

FroSci Gone Wild from Bwog on Vimeo.

The students were understandably confused, even when Hughes attempted to explain his performance. "In order to learn quantum mechanics, you have to strip to your raw, erase all the garbage from your brain, and start over again,” he said. “Um, nothing you’ve learned in your life up til now is in any way going to help prepare you for this. . . . I’ve been tasked with the impossible challenge of teaching you quantum mechanics in one hour.”

As Professor Hughes has not responded to various press requests, we can only assume that his mission was not successful.

"I entered the workforce three days after graduating from college and I've been working ever since," he said.

Though Mr. Lemann only made the official announcement about his departure this morning, the news leaked out last night in a  Bloomberg News report. Apparently, word of the dean's potential departure began to make its way around the j-school prior to the Bloomberg story.

"Rumors began to circulate yesterday. But even with a building full of journalists, nobody could confirm it," said Columbia Professor Michael Shapiro.

Mr. Shapiro confirmed the news when he read the Bloomberg story, but he doesn't know who the news outlets' source was.

"They obviously didn't get it from me," he said.

Though news of his exit generated substantial interest from news outlets and his colleagues, Mr. Lemann pointed out that the news isn't exactly shocking since media businesses and universities operate very differently.

"It's a bit of what we call a dog bites man story in journalism," said Mr. Lemann, who went on to explain that, although someone might stay in a powerful role indefinitely in a news organization, the same is not true in the academic world. "An institution is not set up to function when one person stays in leadership positions for years and years."

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger will lead the search for a new dean--another way that academia differs from the professional news business, where Mr. Lemann noted, a departing editor is usually expected to help chose and groom a successor.

Unity Temple, Oak Park, Ill., 1904. (The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives/Avery/MoMA)

For Frank Lloyd Wright acolytes, appreciating the architect's masterpieces has long involved pilgrimages to far-flung locations. There's always the Guggenheim, of course, but more importantly, there's Falling Water, the Robie House, Taliesin and Taliesin West. Until recently, even looking at the architect's papers involved a journey to the latter two locations, in Spring Green, Wis., and Scottsdale, Ariz.

But now Wright's papers, which have been stored at the two Taliesins since his death in 1959, are moving to New York, in what The New York Times terms an unusual joint partnership between Columbia University's Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library and the Museum of Modern Art.

The collection includes 23,000 architectural drawings, 44,000 photographs, more than 40 large-scale models, manuscripts and copious correspondence. Basically, Avery gets the architect's papers—which will be available for public viewing after the library completes the acquisitions process—and MoMA gets the models.

Best of all, besides the considerable costs of moving, preserving and storing the collection,  Columbia and MoMA get the collection for free. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation will continue to monitor the collection, but New York will be its permanent home.

“It’s just astounding as primary source material,” Avery director Carole Ann Fabian told The Times. “I keep thinking of it as a national treasure.”

Meanwhile, the museum gushed in its statement that "At MoMA, Frank Lloyd Wright’s work will be in conversation with great modern artists and architects such as Picasso, Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier." Of course, Wright either is or isn't in conversations with other great modern artists and architects wherever his models and drawings are stored, but we suppose that conversation will be easier to hear at MoMA?

So when can we see these treasures? Wright's papers will be available for viewing at Avery around the end of next year; as for his models and mock-ups, they'll only be coming out for special exhibits and displays. In the meantime, the Architect's Newspaper provides a nice sneak peek of what we can expect to see with a slideshow and video.

kvelsey@observer.com

And you thought the High Line looked crazy. (Columbia)

This gives a whole new meaning to "in the heights."

Columbia University Medical Center has just announced that Diller Scofidio + Renfro will be designing a new 14-story medical building on Haven Avenue between 171st and 172nd streets that will be home to high-tech class facilities for all four CUMC colleges as well as the biomedical program within Columbia University's college of art and science.

The university tapped DS+R, along with Gensler, to create a new landmark for the medical center, one that will be visible from both the George Washington Bridge and Riverside Park.“The new building will have the best possible design that is attractive, comfortable, and appropriate for the intense kind of education that our students receive,” Dr. P. Roy Vagelos, a 1954 graduate of the school and former CEO of Merck, said in a release.

This is DS+R's latest project in the city, following on the huge successes of the High Line and Lincoln Center, as well as their early interior for Brasserie. It will also be the first vertical project for the firm, which tends to focus on cultural and institutional work, like museums and performance centers. This is not their first project for Columbia, however—the firm is also designing a new business school building named at Henry Kravis at the university's new Manhattanville campus.

“The new Medical and Graduate Education Building will be the social and academic anchor of the CUMC campus,” Elizabeth Diller said. “Spaces for education and socializing are intertwined to encourage new forms of collaborative learning among students and faculty.

This can be seen in the signature design feature, an exposed glass stack on the southern side of the building the designers call "the study cascade." Like the rest of Columbia's new buildings—many of which employ top designers in the field, like Steven Holl's nearby athletic center in Inwoof—the project will be sustainable, aiming for LEED Gold status. It is set to begin construction in 2013

Via The Bad Deal.

Yes, $20 won't just buy you the company of your fellow Columbia SIPA graduates, but also, a complimentary cocktail! Bloomberg food critic/reporter and The Bad Deal blogger Ryan Sutton notes, in an oddly soothing rage:

Dear Columbia University: Thanks for charging me $100,000 for my graduate degree in international affairs. In exchange, let me give you a little bit of SUTTON ADVICE. I’m glad you’ve been checking out Anfora (cool place), but generally speaking, it’s probably not a great idea to host a “salon” on INEQUALITY at a swank lounge that sells $14 cocktails. Maybe let’s reconsider this one?

Indeed, "(cool)" West Village bar Anfora's cocktails range from $12 to $14 (though their Sazerac—$13—opts for Pernod, the cheap bastards). While $20-ish would actually buy one a panini and a side-salad there, it may be an ill-advised setting for a sobering discussion (and networking opportunity) surrounding the matter of income inequality. May we suggest Chock Full o'Nuts, instead?

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Yesterday we reported that Columbia University has won LEED ND Platinum for its Manhattanville campus, in recognition for the sustainability goals the school has set out for its new 17-acre campus off 125th Street. A big part of that is the fancy green buildings the school will be building on the site, the first of which is the Jerome L. Greene Science Center (dubbed the Mind-Brain Institute) designed by Pritzker Prize winner and Times HQ architect Renzo Piano, who also helped created the LEED-certified master plan. The project is slowly taking shape in Harlem, but Columbia provided us with this cool video that shows the building coming together in all of one minute, 17 seconds.

All the while, Columbia has gone about the work of creating the most environmentally progressive neighborhood in the entire five boroughs, all from whole cloth.

Last week, the U.S. Green Building Council awarded Columbia’s new campus with LEED ND Platinum, the highest rating in the council's new-ish neighborhood development program. It is only the fifth project in the state to earn such recognition, and the first to achieve LEED ND Platinum. The designation means that the project has embraced the goals of accessibility, density, design and environmental efficiency, creating a model for future development.

"We like to think of it as a three-legged stool: environment, economy, equity," Jason Hercules, director of the LEED ND program, told The Observer. "Manhattanville excelled in all three."

LEED ratings have become a practical necessity for any new development in the city, ranging from university buildings to office towers to luxury condos. Even novel projects, like single-family homes, are pursuing this sheen of green, and thanks to Local Law 86, every new city building achieves the rating as well.

Now, to broaden its influence and further promote dense, sustainable growth throughout the country, the Green Building Council created the LEED ND program. Developers get points for everything ranging from transportation proximity to clean construction practices to the size of the blocks within the development—bigger ones tend to encourage out-of-scale superblocks.

Columbia's Manhattanville plan, created by SOM and Renzo Piano, entered the program five years ago, shortly after the rezoning was approved by the city. "Because of our serious commitment to sustainable design, we wanted this project to be seriously considered from the start," said Joseph Ienuso, senior vice president for facilities. "It’s a very rigorous process, we’ve been working on it five years."

The campus actually served as a pilot project for the council, helping it to refine exactly what criteria would be used to rate other neighborhoods in the program. "Theirs was a project that fit well with the goals of the program," Mr. Hercules said. "It was a shared learning experience." (This involvement had no bearing on Columbia’s receiving of the highest rating, Mr. Hercules said.)

“This is a milestone for Columbia not only because we are building a future in our home community in New York," university president Lee Bollinger said in a statement, "but because we are doing so with a commitment to the best urban planning principles and the highest quality architecture that reflect both the core values of city life and the fundamental need for a more sustainable society."

Manhattanville gets considerable points for many of the factors that make Manhattan and the rest of New York an inherently sustainable place to be, such as compact blocks, diversity of building types and proximity to robust transportation options. Still, Mr. Hercules said these do not guarantee a project scoring well or even making the cut. "Otherwise everything would be LEED certified," he said. "Somethings are easy in New York, others are hard."

Affordable housing is a big one. Critics have complained that there was not enough in the university's plan, and while it could not include any within the project, there is ample faculty housing (cutting down on commutes) as well as a $1 million affordable housing fund that will help seed local projects.

But those features are fairly standard. It is the more innovative commitments that pushed the Manhattanville campus to outperform others, such as a promise to build a minimum of 84 percent of its buildings to high sustainability standards (LEED Silver or above). An innovative below-grade service network, that keeps maintenance and delivery work off the streets, was given favorable marks. The possible inclusion of ferry service from the pier at 125th Street was another highlight, as were job training programs both within the campus and without.

"There’s a balance that needs to be made when new and larger projects come in," Mr. Hercules said, touching on the topic of gentrification that some locals feel remains unaddressed. "But the program considers all of these issues, and we feel this project made steps in the right direction."

One of the most unique features of the Manhattanville project, especially given its size and the fact it will be in progress for decades, is the commitment to clean construction practices. This involves everything from acoustical baffling added to extra-high construction fencing, which combined keep down noise and debris from spreading into the neighborhood, to using low sulfur fuel in the construction equipment. "One thing that’s pretty obvious when you’re at our site is you don’t see the puffs of black smoke you see at a lot of other construction site around the city," Mr. Ienuso said. The equipment is also washed down before leaving the site, so as not to track dust throughout the neighborhood.

"These things may seem small, but they add up," Mr. Ienuso said.

One person who had a hard time doing the math was State Senator Bill Perkins, who represents the Manhattanville neighborhood and has been an outspoken critic of the project. He said while the community might get some ancillary benefits from the LEED recognition, such as cleaner air and maybe a few jobs, it was primarily the university that would be benefiting, this despite the fact that it was community outcry that forced the university to embrace more sustainable practices.

"The neighborhood will be built to a better standard, but the community will not be here to enjoy it," Senator Perkins said. "It's almost like I picked the cotton but you get to wear the shirt."

Two things not factored into the Green Building Council's calculations were the case of eminent domain and the fatal accident this spring. On the issue of eminent domain, Mr. Hercules said it was "one factor among many."

"That’s something that’s somewhat outside the scope of our rating system," he continued. "Obviously, it’s important how a development is going to get control of their site. We obviously wouldn’t encourage anything that would disenfranchise anyone in the community. But once the developer has the property, it’s out roll to encourage a sustainable community."

This would not be the first time the council has overlooked such issues. The first project to ever receive LEED ND, back in 2009 was the city's plans for Willets Point—yet another eminent domain poster child.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Inside the accident. (FDNY)

Blame it on the builders.

Breeze International, the firm demolishing a Manhattanville building for Columbia that collapsed yesterday and claimed one life, just released a statement addressing the cause of the accident. The firm's investigation found that an unusual construction configuration appears to be the reason the building was destabilized and collapsed.

Because the structural beam the demo crew severed was not properly connected to the rest of the structure, when it was cut, everything else came down around it. Breeze points to a lack of construction drawings from when the building was built between eight and 10 decades ago as to why the unusual connection was not initially recognized.

In other words, this appears to be an unfortunate, if unavoidable, construction accident. A Department of Buildings spokesperson said the city would be releasing its own assessment shortly.

Breeze International's full release is as follows:

First and foremost, everyone from the Breeze family would like to express our deepest heart felt condolences to the families of our deceased and injured workers.  These gentlemen have been with us for many years and our primary concern during the time of this terrible tragedy is with them and their families.

We did not respond yesterday to the requests for comments because we were first focused on addressing the needs of the families of our workers.  Secondly, our attention was required with the investigation that was being conducted by our engineers and the forensic engineers from the Department of Buildings to determine the cause of this terrible accident.  We have and will continue to completely cooperate in any way we can with the Department of Buildings and OSHA investigators.

The investigation conducted to date has led all of the parties involved to believe that this accident was the result of an unknown, unusual, latent condition in one of the structural beams.

In normal construction practice, structural beams running horizontally are joined together at a vertical column.  All of the beams and columns being removed by Breeze at this building were constructed in this manner.  The horizontal beam that failed, however, was not joined with the other beam at the column.  Instead, the beam being cut carried past the column and was joined to the other horizontal beam by a splice with bolts that was encased in 2 feet of concrete.  Because this was a century old building, the bolts in the splice apparently failed and could not carry the load that was transferred to the splice and the bolts when the beam was cut.  Once again, because of the age of the building, no structural drawings were available to show this unknown and latent condition buried in the concrete casing.  Neither Breeze nor its consulting engineers can recall ever encountering this type of a structural beam configuration at this type of a location.

Department of Buildings’ representatives have been conducting inspections of the site on a weekly basis and have been closely monitoring Breeze’s demolition activities, with our full cooperation.

The stop work order issued at this site on March 5 was rescinded only days after its issuance when the specifications that were supposedly violated were reviewed by a Department of Buildings supervisor.  This violation related to whether a particular type of rope was being used for the tie-off of a safety harness.  It was not related in any way to the structural beam issue that was apparently the cause of this accident.

The violation issued on March regarding Breeze’s alleged failure to notify the Department of Buildings of the commencement of demolition work was merely the result of a harmless clerical error as the Department was already actually aware of Breeze’s demolition work because Breeze is demolishing four other buildings on the same block as part of the same Columbia University project.  Once again, this violation had nothing to do with this accident.

Since 2009, Breeze has been exclusively run by Toby Romano, Jr.  His father, Toby Romano, Sr., is the individual that was the subject of the alleged criminal activities, however, the father has had no involvement with the company since 2009 and no involvement with this incident.

Breeze is a qualified, competent, responsible demolition contractor that has successfully and safely performed thousands of projects in New York City, many in locations far more congested and complex than this Columbia University project.  Unfortunately, this terrible accident was just that, an accident, one that was truly no one’s fault, but which, nonetheless, had tragic consequences for the Breeze family and our workers, about which we are all deeply saddened.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC