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Is NYC becoming a college town?

By David Freedlander | dfreedlander@am-ny.com

January 25, 2008

NYU's new 26 story dorm on E 12th Street in New York, NY. (Kristy May)

Columbia's brand-new 17-acre campus in Harlem. Six million square feet of additional space for NYU dorms and classrooms, stretching from Washington Square to the outer boroughs. A Fordham "fortress" springing up on the Upper West Side.

Colleges and universities are forecasting unprecedented growth in the coming years, adding as much as 17 million square feet of space -- or more than either the World Trade Center or the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn -- and may begin to exert an even greater influence on the ebb and flow of life in the city.

"Our fear is that the neighborhood could be overwhelmed by these institutions that they have played host to for 150 years," said Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation.

Berman and other neighborhood advocates fear that the low-rise character of the neighborhood could become overrun by packs of college students and tall dorms to house them.

"It becomes a stage set instead of a real urban neighborhood, or company town where everything around you is run by a single entity," Berman said.

It's not just the big players like New York University and Columbia that are looking to grow. Smaller CUNY schools like John Jay and Hunter colleges are also eyeing real estate in an effort to boost rankings and prestige. Even tiny Cooper Union, with an enrollment of 920 students, is building new labs and classrooms in the East Village.

"If it wasn't absolutely critical to grow then we wouldn't," said Will Haas, director of planning for NYU. "Education is a very competitive world, and we are trying to remain competitive amidst some of the most expensive real estate in the world."

Colleges locally are trying to keep up with their brethren around the country, which combined to spend $11.3 billion in construction costs in 2006 in an all-out effort to attract the best students and faculty.

"The intellectual capital that universities generate for New York City is an important aspect of why we are a global center for anyone who wants to know the crucial ideas of our time," said Robert Kasdin, senior executive vice-president for Columbia University.

But the benefits come with a price, and colleges and their neighbors have frequently butted heads.

"They built a whole new campus 100 years ago and didn't destroy an existing community in order to do it," said Michael Henry Adams, 51, who has lived in the neighborhood for 22 years. "There are generations of people who are going to hate Columbia because of the poison they are putting here."

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has worked to smooth over town-gown disputes.

"Every university in the city abuts a neighborhood with a tradition and with its own hopes and desires," he said. "Universities have to exist within their own communities, not overrun them."

Today, each college is going about their growth plans differently. In the Village, residents have fought against plans to build a 26-story NYU dormitory and against the university's plans to construct a co-generation plant on Mercer Street.

Columbia has hired renowned architect Renzo Piano to construct whole cloth a new campus in West Harlem.

On the Upper West Side, residents are fretting over Fordham's plan to add 2.5 million square feet of space.

"The concern is that they are creating a campus that turns in on itself," said Anna Levin, who 54, who has lived nearby for 5 years. "You get used to what you have and you don't want to lose it."

These types of clashes are inevitable, according to Kenneth Jackson, editor of the "The Encyclopedia of New York City." and a professor at Columbia. "In New York, space is precious, and everybody feels like they've got a deal and don't want to move," he said.

He added: "Nobody wants to live next to falling down drunk 20-year-olds."