By Matt Chaban 3/22/12 8:44pm

Accidents

Inspectors explore the accident. (Rob Bennet/WSJ)

Condolences, but No Culpability, After Columbia Building Collapse in Harlem

Following today’s warehouse collapse in Manhattanville that killed a construction worker, Columbia University released a statement expressing its sympathies for the family.

“First and foremost, our hearts go out to the family, friends and co-workers of the construction worker who was killed in this tragic incident, and our thoughts remain with the two other workers who were injured this morning and their loved ones,” the university said in a brief statement.

The building was being taken down to make way for a public plaza that is part of the university’s second phase, which remains years away. The scheduling of the construction work was not immediately clear—why demolish now to leave vacant for later. Read More

By Dan Geiger 12/07/11 9:30am

The Lease Beat

5 Columbus.

EXCLUSIVE: 5 Columbus Circle Snags 2

Two tenants have signed leases at 5 Columbus Circle totaling 17,000 square feet of space.

One of the deals, a 5,500 square foot transaction with 1Life Healthcare on the building’s 17th floor, was done for rents around $70 per square foot, among the highest the building has ever netted, even during the real estate boom before the recession.

Read More

By Chris Clemans 11/18/11 2:13pm

College Football

Columbiaband

Columbia Marching Band Unbanned After Prank

Columbia’s football game against Cornell last Saturday has received a lot of attention lately. It’s not the team’s stellar play that has people interested—they are 0-9 on the season—but rather the school band. Perhaps they were simply fed up with the program’s disappointing performance, or maybe—and this seems more likely—they were just flat-out bored, but Read More

By Emily Witt 7/25/11 4:47pm

Masters of Fine Arts

BAM 2008 Spring Gala - Cocktails

Deborah Eisenberg to Teach in Columbia MFA Program

Deborah Eisenberg, the short story writer, is leaving the University of Virginia to join the faculty at Columbia University’s writing program. Ms. Eisenberg has taught at UVA since 1994, but the lure of Morningside Heights and brilliant students willing to bank $100,000 on their own literary promise (through a combination of scholarships and loans, of Read More

By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 2/24/11 8:14pm

mobile payments

A Square Deal on the Columbia Quad

Twitter was abuzz this week with the news that Square, the start-up service that allows anyone with an iPhone and a small white device to process credit cards, was dropping its steep transaction fees. One business that had an especially caffeinated reaction was Joe: The Art of Coffee, who tweeted that their new Columbia Read More

By Laura Kusisto 2/02/11 12:50am

Features

The World’s Biggest College Town

On a gray Friday in January, a largely empty church on 121st Street and Broadway was immaculate in the way of a rarely used living room. Even on a slushy winter morning, Corpus Christi’s floors gleamed.

At noon sharp, in the rectory next door, the Rev. Raymond Rafferty, the church’s pastor, leaned forward, checked his Read More

By Emily Geminder 10/05/10 11:43pm

Block By Block

ViVa Manhattanville in West Harlem

Amid Columbia University’s ongoing border skirmishes–the result of its planned 17-acre expansion northward–even the name of the embattled neighborhood is contested.

Some favor Mahattanville, a moniker harking back to the 19th-century Quaker village that sprang up, as contemporary guidebooks put it, a whole “eight miles from New York.” Others contend the area is simply an Read More