NYU’s warring media publications continue to war. A new media Tumblr-meme-thing’s author is mysterious. Jay Penske pissed on someone’s boots outside of a yacht club, and, after that, what else is there to discuss regarding media today? Truly? Here are your (very short) Thursday Evening Media Briefs: Read More
One of the lingering concerns over the NYU rezoning of its two superblocks—besides whether it not it was The Final Nail in the Village’s coffin—was the fate of 505 LaGuardia Place, one of the three 30-story concrete sentinels that makes up the I.M. Pei-designed Silver Towers.
The other two are faculty apartments, but this one is Mitchell Llama public housing, and the lease with NYU was set to expire in 2014, at which point rents could jump to market rates, possibly driving out long-time residents, many of them elderly. According to local Councilwoman Margaret Chin’s office, NYU has agreed to provide 505 LaGuardia with the old lease agreement in perpetuity. The pols who fought for this agreement, along with the tenants benefiting from it, are naturally ecstatic, as made clear in their quotes below. Read More
Last Thursday, as has happened every day for going on a century, a couple middle-aged intellectuals gathered around a table in Greenwich Village to discuss the news of the day, which, as has happened every day for going on a century, did not suit them.
“They act like it’s a no-brainer,” Mark Crispin Miller explained of the acquaintances he had made in recent months in his quest to stand up to his employer and landlord, New York University. Just two days prior, a committee of the City Council, part of the monolithic “they” Mr. Crispin Miller was railing against, approved the university’s 2 million-square-foot expansion plan, which would plant four sizable buildings just across the street.
“‘Of course it’s going through,’ they tell you,” he said with disgust. “‘She’s running for mayor, she needs the support of the real estate industry, you moron.’” She would be Christine Quinn, Speaker of the City Council, without whose blessing almost nothing happens there. Her district also happens to be just around the corner, giving her added incentive to take an interest in, and credit for, the project.
“This is a no-bullshit city,” Patrick Deer interjected with his British crack. “Even if we see something’s off from across the street, we’ll barge in and do something about it. There’s an innate sense of justice. Or so I thought. I know there was when I got here.” Mr. Deer has been at NYU since 2002, teaching English. Read More
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NYU’s controversial Greenwich Village expansion is set to go before the City Council tomorrow, where it will almost assuredly pass. Not giving up, NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan—its his plan, not theirs, they charge—have launched a new site targeted at all New Yorkers, an attempted rallying cry pitched in the middle of the Village. Read More
Tomorrow, NYU will take its somewhat shrunken plan for its Greenwich Village expansion back to the City Council. Last week, local rep Margaret Chin convinced the school to shave 17 percent off its scheme, modifications that were approved today at the City Planning Commission. The university has cooked up a new set of renderings showing the changes to the towers on the site in anticipation of full council approval come Wednesday. Can you tell the difference? Read More
Wonderful Moments in Public Speaking
New York City icon, author, and essayist Fran Lebowitz needs little in the way of introduction. Via ANIMAL New York, she recently made an appearance at SoHo bookstore McNally Jackson for the release of the book ’While We Were Sleeping: NYU and the Destruction of New York‘ which was written by a group of NYU faculty members (but of course) who are in opposition to the university’s president, John Sexton. Ms. Lebowitz was her usual, fiery self, which is to say: Utterly captivating and refreshingly impassioned. Read More
New York University won a huge victory at the City Council today, when it received approval for its somewhat less massive plan to expand its campus in Greenwich Villag, from from 2.5 million square feet to 1.9 million. What does that look like? The university produced some handy visual aids that show exactly that.
Was it enough? Not according to the project’s opponents, two dozen or so of whom showed up at the council this morning to waggle their hands in the face of the assembled pols (cheers, boos and hisses were forbidden, so they were left with jazz hands, like an Occupy protest).
“I’m really disappointed,” Community Board 2 chair David Gruber said after the land use committee voted 19-1 in favor of the modified plan. “I really felt the plans was not modified enough. NYU, with the tacit backing of the mayor, felt they could do whatever they wanted.” Read More
Update (1:46):The zoning subcommittee passed the modified proposal unanimously, while the full land-use committee supported it by a vote of 19-1, with Councilman Charles Barron the lone no-vote.
The land-use committee meeting is still going on, with a vote due at some point this afternoon, but NYU has just revealed their deal with the City Council and local rep Margaret Chin to reduce the size of its expanded campus on the two superblocks south of Washington Square park. The project will be downsized 20 percent overall, with a 26 percent reduction in above ground space. Read More
Later today, within the next hour or two, the City Council’s zoning subcommittee is expected to unveil a compromise that it has reached with New York University on its ambitious and controversial plan to build 2.2 million square feet of facilities on two blocks the school owns south of Washington Square Park. Whatever form that takes, be it shorter buildings, fewer buildings, maybe even though almost certainly not no buildings, it will be the final deal for NYU’s 2031 expansion plan.
The faculty of NYU know this full well, and a good many of them dread it. Already 36 departments or divisions at the university have come out against the plan, and even as they realized there was little likelihood of stopping the project in the short-term, a faculty coalition came up with its own plan anyway, releasing it on the same day as the university collects its prize.
“No one knows NYU’s space needs better than we do,” said Mark Crispin Miller, a media and culture professor who is one of the leading faculty opponents of the expansion plan. Read More
The City Council’s public hearing on New York University’s Village expansion plan drew a crowd on Friday that was notable for both its size and its star power— Matthew Broderick offered testimony on the neighborhood’s quickly eroding quirkiness—and its eagerness to communicate its distaste for the controversial project.
In fact, the City Hall hearing filled up so fast that eager attendees had to line up outside the door, waiting until someone left the room before they were allowed to enter. The Observer watched as one sign-bearing group debated queuing up in the punishing heat before deciding against it. Read More
