By Nora Bosworth

Greenwich Village and Soho are brimming with individuals who lead wildly different lifestyles, and who oppose New York University’s gargantuan development project for reasons as distinct as their own personalities. Yet whether these people are managers of local liquor stores, self-pronounced “old hippie” gardeners, or brazen Soho residents who want to see more Armani suits and fewer “I love New York” t-shirts, they all feel an imminent threat to their quality of life in light of NYU’s expansion plan.

The construction, should it come to pass—which looks increasingly likely since its approval in the City Council in July 2012—will mark one of the greatest landscape shifts that the Village or Soho has seen in decades.

Neighborhood organizations, politicians, incensed neighbors, and 39 faculty departments of NYU have united to resist the development. In September 2012, the eleven groups filed a lawsuit against New York City, accusing the City Council and the City Planning Commission, among other governmental agencies, of violating a number of City and State laws. The petitioners are being represented by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.

The groups’ case falls under Article 78 of the New York Civil Practice Law and Rules, which states that anyone may appeal a public agency’s written decision if he or she believes the agency has acted illegally. One of the petitioners’ primary claims centers on the assertion that the City agencies illegally alienated dedicated parkland without the approval of the State legislature.

Last Tuesday, February 26, petitioners against the city’s approval of the expansion plan had their first court hearing, marking a pivotal moment in a development battle that has been boiling over since the university unveiled its proposal in 2010. The petitioners include Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Historic Districts Council, LaGuardia Corner Gardens, and the Soho Alliance.

At the heart of the parkland alienation debate is whether or not four areas which the City gave NYU permission to build on – Mercer Playground, LaGuardia Park, LaGuardia Corner Gardens, and the Mercer-Houston Dog Run – constitute “parkland.”

If the Judge determines these spaces to be parkland, as the petitioners assert, then under New York’s Public Trust Doctrine, the City violated State law by handing over the lands to NYU without first obtaining the State’s approval.

In its defense, the City maintains that because the strips of land were never mapped as parks -  meaning they were under the Department of Transportation’s jurisdiction as opposed to the Park Department’s – they did not count as parkland.

But a scathing affidavit from former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern throws the City’s defense into serious question, calling their argument “shocking.”

Stern writes that as Parks Commissioner he “repeatedly requested the transfer of these sites to Parks and to officially list them as such on the City Map.”

He also asserts that, “There is one reason, and one reason only, why these parcels were not formally mapped: NYU obstructed the process through the efforts of its lobbyists and emissaries.”

Moreover, Stern entirely rejects the City’s assumption that a park must be “mapped” as parkland in order to be protected as such. He cites Central Park as a prime example of obvious parkland that was not mapped for many years.

“There is no need to specifically map such sites as parkland in order to demonstrate the intent to dedicate them as such,” he writes.

Instead, he argues, a park’s designation “flows from the publicly-accepted, continuous use over a period of time.” Under this logic, the four spaces in question would clearly fit the requirements of parkland, as the neighborhood has used them as such for many years. He also cites the Parks Department’s signage at the sites, its regular maintenance of the property, and its identification of the land on its website as parkland, as additional proof of its being parkland.

“These are parks, plain and simple,” he says.

But NYU administration disagrees. “Just saying a site is parkland does not make it so,” said Philip Lentz, the Director of Public Affairs at NYU in an email.

The two opposing sides of the lawsuit perceived the outcome of Tuesday’s hearing quite differently. The plaintiffs requested both that a separate hearing be held focusing solely on the parkland alienation issue, and that the defendants procure documents, (“discovery,” in legalese), that could prove Stern’s assertions. Or rather, disprove the City’s.

“[We] need expedited discovery to belie the Respondents’ false claims that the City never intended or even attempted to treat these four sites as parks,” the petitioners explained in their complaint.

In court, on February 26, the Judge decided that the City must ‘”show cause” why the petitioners’ request for a hearing and expedited discovery on their “parkland alienation” claim should be dismissed, according to a press release issued by Gibson Dunn’s public relations team.

While NYU issued a subsequent statement saying, “Nothing changes as a result of Tuesday’s hearing,” the petitioners hailed it as their “first legal victory.”

Bo Riccobono, who is at once a member of NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, Vice President of the Soho Alliance, and the Vice Chair of Community Board 2, explained the “victory” in its legal context.

“Most of the time discovery is not allowed, under article 78,” he said in a phone interview.

Daniel Chirlin, J.D., one of the attorneys representing the petitioners, confirmed Riccobono’s assertion in an email, explaining that such legal actions are “special expedited proceedings under New York law.” Chirlin also celebrated the Judge’s order, adding, “Our firm has had excellent success in obtaining discovery in these sorts of lawsuits. We are confident that the Court will grant discovery in this matter when it reviews all the arguments,” at the next hearing.

The Village Backyard

 One effect of the plan, if executed, is certain: the LaGuardia Corner Gardens, the longest running community garden in the City, will be no more. The building that would go up on Bleecker Street would cast the garden into shadow, killing off most, if not all, of its plants.

“While the remaining sunlight could support shade-tolerant species, the proposed Bleecker Building adjacent to the garden would cast between four and five-and-a-half hours of new shadow on the garden during morning hours throughout the growing season, jeopardizing the viability of shade-intolerant species,” states the Environmental Impact Statement that the Department of City Planning composed.

It goes on to explain, however, that such a loss would not damage the neighborhood’s character as the garden is not, “a defining feature … with respect to uniqueness or overall characterization of the area.”

Sara Jones, Chairwoman of LaGuardia Corner Gardens, begs to differ. A florist by trade, she has spent nearly twenty years tending to her community garden and is now steeling herself for the death of most of her plants, including her one hundred rose bushes–she counted them recently– her vegetables and herbs, and the apple tree that is older than the garden itself. It has dozens of members and is open to the public seven days a week.

In his affidavit, Stern speaks fondly of the gardens, adding that as Parks Commissioner he told Community Board 2 that he “would embrace a formal transfer of LaGuardia Corner Gardens to Parks.” He says it never happened because NYU, who he calls the “800-pound-gorilla in the room,” pushed against it.

“We’ve made it a park for older people who are afraid to go into Washington Square Park,” Sara tells me, pants smudged from a morning of tending to her plot.

“Where else can you go on a school trip to a garden farm? Not in this neighborhood,” Sara says. In warmer weather she does school tours.

“It’s like the Village backyard,” another member, Susan Taylorson, chimes in.

But whether the “Village backyard” is also a park is still up in the air. The decision may very well determine the future for both Greenwich Village and Soho.

The next hearing will be held on March 15th, at the Manhattan State Supreme Court

By Allison Volpe

When you think about NYU and Washington Square Park, what comes to mind is the actual college campus that has been created within the bounds of the East Village. NYU is constantly expanding, sometimes to the dismay of community boards, art organizations, historical societies and even its own faculty members. Despite all of the controversy that can surround their actions, they have created quite a community. While inhabiting the same city as so many other colleges, NYU has been able to create something unique ­— made up of multiple buildings, each with a unique history. What the school has created is vastly different from the majority of college campuses in NYC. Below are some historical and architectural facts about this “campus”, gleaned from a recent tour through the neighborhood with the Historic Districts Council. (Most of these facts you likely weren’t aware of,)

• The first thing that comes to mind when about Washington Square Park is obviously the famous Washington Square Arc. Created in 1889 to celebrate the Centennial of George Washington’s inauguration as president of the U.S. Constructed of only plaster and wood, it was later converted to a permanent marble arch. It is modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

• NYU used to have a Bronx campus, which was originally built in 1894. In 1973 NYU sold the campus to the City University of New York — it has been the campus of Bronx Community College ever since.

• Edgar Allen Poe lived in a Row House at 85 West 3rd Street. The construction of NYU’s Furman Hall, which was needed to expand their law school, required for the residence to be destroyed. NYU compromised by agreeing to preserve the façade, but actually failed to do so. Not one of the old bricks was used to construct the new structure, and externally it does not resemble a remnant of a 19th century house.

• Facadism is a practice that has been frequently applied to buildings surrounding the park. This practice is to

please both property developers who need to develop properties for modern uses, and preservationists who wish to preserve buildings of historical interest.

• In the Courtyard of NYU’s Silver Towers apartment buildings on Bleecker Street, there is an enlargement of a sculpture by Picasso from his 1934 series of busts. It was created using sandblasted cement, and was also declared a landmark in 2008.

• On a drearier note, NYU’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library has been the site of three suicides in the past 10 years. Recently, floor to ceiling metal barriers were added to prevent any future deaths.

• NYU owns ‘superblocks’ which are bordered by West 3rd Street, West Houston Street, Mercer Street, and LaGuardia place. Superblocks are much larger than a traditional city block, with greater setbacks for buildings.

• NYU is currently in the midst of yet another massive and controversial plan for expansion, named NYU 2031. To find the details of the plan, you can head to NYU website located at: http://www.nyu.edu/nyu2031/nyuinnyc/.

If you’re interested in taking a tour and learning about the architecture and history of one of your favorite New York neighborhoods, visit AIA.org.

photo from Flickr Commons

It seems the ’2031 plan’ isn’t the only alteration NYU is making to its urban campus— they’re also making adjustments to the storied Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, and for an eerie reason.

To preclude the possibility of more suicides inside its library, the school will be adding digital-themed golden panels to the inside of the library’s complex staircase system (picture a very large, wide spiral staircase —its diameter, say, 10 feet— and shoving a 9’11″-diameter tube right down the middle). The panels, which purported won’t block the library’s view of Washington Square Park, will block people from being able to jump from the stairs and crashing to their death on the library’s bottom floor— something that’s happened three times before.

Two suicides occurred inside the library in 2003, prompting the school to construct an unobtrusive, clear barrier along the staircases, but another suicide occurred in 2009. The library has garnered an association with suicide— something that doesn’t bode well for the building’s popularity.

The panels will only weight about 150 pounds each and will not put any consequential burden on the building’s existing construct, the New York Times says.

There are pictures of the plans here and here. Study on.

Residents, politicians, activists envision impact of NYU’s long-term expansion plan

New York University scored a key victory last week as the City Council approved a slightly scaled back version of the school’s controversial 2031 expansion plan. While the project was pared down, it will still add close to 6 million square feet of academic space throughout the city. Nearly half of the expansion, equal to about the size of the Empire State Building, would be concentrated on two Washington Square-area superblocks located near the school’s main campus in Greenwich Village.

The NYU plan calls for four new buildings on the two large blocks bordered by LaGuardia Place and Mercer, West Houston and West 3rd streets. The buildings will be used for both academic and residential purposes.
The plan has generated an enormous amount of discussion and controversy both for and against since it was unveiled by NYU officials in 2010. Moreover, the Council’s approval comes at a time when residents uptown are waging a battle of their own against Columbia University’s mammoth, long-range plan in West Harlem that includes a 17-acre, $6.3 billion campus expansion.

Opponents of the NYU plan, including village residents, activists, NYU faculty members and others, have already vowed to continue the fight, including an expected legal challenge, to get the plan sent back to the drawing board and significantly revised. The plan has the support of the mayor and is unlikely to be vetoed.
But what if the current incarnation of the plan is upheld and remains largely unchanged? What will Greenwich Village look like in 2031? Will it be congested, overcrowded and largely unlivable, as many naysayers suggest, or will the plan usher in a new chapter of peaceful coexistence between NYU and its Village neighbors?

“When I ask myself what the Village will look like in 20 years, the first thing I see is large, concrete, functional-looking buildings casting long shadows over the neighborhood; absorbing all the light. The only outdoor space for people to congregate will be Washington Square Park, and you know how crowded that gets now!” said Janet Hayes, who lives in a high-rise co-op at 505 LaGuardia Place near Houston.

A longtime resident of the Village and a local Republican leader, Hayes predicted that NYU’s plan, if allowed to come to fruition, would greatly affect life in the Village and not in a good way.

“Take grocery shopping, using the dry cleaner or going out to dinner, for example—full-service restaurants will be replaced with beer halls, pizza places and other fast-food sources,” Hayes predicted.

She added that more stores would cater to NYU and transit would be a “nightmare”; subways and buses would be overcrowded all day long, and “forget catching a cab.”

In support of NYU’s plan, Borough President Scott Stringer, who most recently helped to broker concessions from the school, cited substantial economic benefits for New York City, which include the creation of 9,500 permanent jobs and as many as 18,200 construction jobs over the next 20 years.

Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, has been one of the plan’s most outspoken critics and has worked to help mobilize village residents, activists and like-minded politicians in opposition to a project he has called a “grandiose scheme of a private university’s super-rich board and its president.”

Immediately following last week’s Council vote, Berman said in a press release, “The NYU expansion plan will turn a residential neighborhood into a company town and subject it to 20 straight years of construction.”
Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit planning organization that serves the tri-state area, however, said NYU’s expansion is important to the city for many reasons.

“NYU’s continued success is vital to the economy of New York. The university is among the city’s largest private employers,” Yaro noted. “NYU can continue to attract top students and scholars only if it is able to modernize and expand…By emphasizing density, the NYU plan will avoid harming any of the Village’s historic fabric.”

Asked about possible loss of open space and congestion resulting from NYU’s plan, Council Member Margaret Chin seemed confident the issue has been addressed. “Under this plan, the open space on the superblocks will be improved and it will be fully accessible by the public for the first time,” Chin said in an emailed statement.
“The padlocks and fences around the Sasaki Garden will finally come down, and this park—which few New Yorkers know about—will finally be open to the public. We will also gain a pedestrian walkway, or ‘greenstreet,’ behind the new Zipper Building, which will connect the Village with Soho,” she said.

The Council member added that the walkway would be lined with cafés and restaurants and would have an indoor atrium open to the public year-round.

A spokesperson for Chin also noted that the university would be “bound” by a 500-page restrictive declaration document that specifies what the school can and can’t do with regard to construction, building and other logistics related to the plan.

For example, the school has committed to limit construction to the hours between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. and to limit weekend construction. In addition, the school has promised to assist with construction mitigation issues related to air quality and noise by equipping affected apartments with soundproofing materials.

“This plan is a way to start over. It is a pathway forward,” Chin said. “This plan integrates the Greenwich Village community and NYU in ways that have never been done before.”

Terri Cude, co-chair of Community Action Alliance against NYU 2031 and a member of Community Board 2 (CB2), isn’t so sure of the plan’s integration into the neighborhood.

“If NYU builds everything that is in the current plan, we will have a very dark neighborhood,” Cude said.
Asked about the various committees that were formed by NYU to address community concerns and incorporate residents’ needs into the plan, Cude said, “They attended all the meetings and listened to everything we had to say. The only thing they didn’t do is modify the plan at all based on the input.”

But the concessions brokered by Stringer in early April did in fact include a significant overall density reduction, preservation of public space as parkland, elimination of a temporary gymnasium on the site of two community playgrounds, elimination of proposed dormitories on the Bleecker Building and an affirmation of NYU’s commitment to provide space for a K-8 school.

Brad Hoylman, former chair of CB2 and candidate for state Senate in District 27, testified before the City Planning Commission back in the spring that the NYU plan would “forever alter the character of the neighborhood, bring in thousands of new people into the area [estimates suggest up to 12,000 people daily] and cause decades of construction disruption for local residents.”

Village residents and community garden members Marcia Lawther and Bob Hirschfeld moved to the neighborhood in the mid-1970s. “It’s invasive. It’s crowded enough as it is,” said Lawther when asked about the expansion.

“In the ’70s, things were much quieter, there was not much going on,” recalled Hirschfeld. “NYU was a separate world. It wasn’t elbowing its way into the community.”

However, signs of hope for the future of the project were evident on Tuesday as legislators lauded a new agreement between NYU and the residents of 505 LaGuardia Place in an effort to maintain long-term affordability at the Mitchell-Lama development.

“I am pleased a deal has been reached and much-needed affordable housing has been preserved in Greenwich Village,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in a prepared statement.

“This agreement guarantees that 505 LaGuardia can maintain affordability and that the working-class families that currently reside there will be able to continue to live in a neighborhood they have long called home.”

Photo by wallyg, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

“Chin and Quinn did us in!” jeered over 50 opponents to New York University’s expansion plan from a balcony overlooking City Council’s chamber. “Shame on you!”

Greenwich Village residents, community activists and N.Y.U. professors filled the chamber to capacity yesterday to witness the full City Council’s final vote to approve hotly debated zoning and map changes that will allow the university to construct four new high-rise buildings over the course of 17 years, 2014 to 2031.

The opponents became increasingly vocal as the time to vote neared, and broke into chants just before it. Speaker Christie Quinn asked for silence and warned the opponents that they would be kicked out, but the chants continued, and security escorted the entire balcony out of the building.

The proposal passed by a 44-to-1 vote.

Prior to the meeting, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) commissioned a 32-page report that outlined the negative impacts of the expansion plan, and opponents wrote a letter to City Council that expressed the community’s dissatisfaction with the proposal.

“The NYU expansion plan will turn a residential neighborhood into a company town and subject it to twenty straight years of construction,” said GVSHP Executive Director Andrew Berman in a statement.  “The Council ignored the grave environmental impacts of this plan and the much better options that had been put forward for NYU to locate new facilities in the Financial District; this is a sad day for democracy in New York City.”

John Sexton, N.Y.U.’s president, however, said that the approval marked “a great day for N.Y.U. and for New York City,” and said that the expansion will provide the city with much-needed construction jobs and university positions.

His statement argued that the plan “strikes an important balance: permitting N.Y.U. to maintain academic excellence by meeting our educational- and research-space needs on our existing footprint over the next two decades, while at the same time addressing the concerns of our neighbors on such issues as improving access to open space.”

The opponents are now considering legal action. “We will be working closely with our partners in the NYU faculty and with our lawyers at Gibson Dunn to pursue every avenue available to us to remedy this tragic wrong which has been imposed upon the people of the City of New York,” said Berman.

Photo Courtesy of GVSHP

Full City Council voted today, 44-1, to approve NYU’s modified expansion plan, despite continued community resistance. Speaker Christine Quinn called the modified plan significantly smaller than the original proposal and was satisfied with the outcome, reported WNYC.

(by Alissa Fleck and Paul Bisceglio)

The decrease in size from approximately 2 million square feet down to 1.9 million, including reduction in density and increases in open space, did not mean much to the plan’s numerous staunch opponents, many of whom have opposed it in its entirety from the beginning. This included the 37 NYU departments which passed resolutions against the plan. Many of these groups have sought legal council, according to WNYC. Additionally, various writers have compiled a collection of protest pieces inspired by the expansion, titled While We Were Sleeping: NYU and the Destruction of New York. 

Councilman Charles Barron was again the only holdout, imploring other councilmembers to heed the voices of Greenwich Village residents over those who may avoid the plan’s direct impact by not living in the construction zone.

Enough Greenwich Village residents, NYU faculty and other community members attended the vote to fill the Council chambers to full capacity. Opponents chanted “Chin and Quinn did us in!” from the balcony just before the actual vote took place, the Village Voice reported, and persisted as Quinn repeatedly called for silence. The entire balcony was escorted out of City Hall prior to the vote.

“This is a sad day for democracy in New York City,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, in a statement. Berman has been a major face for the opposition since the plan’s inception. He added his group would seek every possible legal avenue in continuing to fight the plan.

“The NYU 2031 plan has little to do with education, and everything to do with real estate and expansion for expansion’s sake,” said Berman. His group and others have joined together in formation of a city-wide campaign in protest: StandUp4NYC.

Jim Walden, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher representing GVSHP, said: “We look forward to our day in court.”

Many residents in Greenwich Village at the time of the vote also expressed dissatisfaction with the proposal, citing construction noise, congestion and loss of a sense of community as major concerns.

“We don’t want another Midtown,” said one community member.

Two others were more willing to embrace the incentives that NYU included in its modified plan. “We’re getting a rent reduction,” said a resident of the University’s Silver Towers, an iconic residential complex on Bleecker Street in the middle of the proposed construction area. “So while we aren’t thrilled about [the expansion plans], that’s why a lot of us [in the Towers] are keeping our mouths shut.” (New York Press has contacted NYU housing and is waiting to confirm the details of this reduction.)

Construction on the plan is set to begin in 2014.

Andrew Berman of the GVSHP. Photo by James Kelleher.

University makes modifications to plan, likely to be approved by full Council

By Alissa Fleck
NYU’s modified expansion plan is one step closer to fruition, much to the disappointment of staunchly opposed community members. The City Council’s Zoning Subcommittee and Land Use Committee voted back-to-back on Tuesday in overwhelming support of NYU’s expansion plan, with certain mutually agreed upon modifications.

All nine members of the Zoning Subcommittee voted in favor of the project, while the Land Use Committee voted 19 in favor and one opposed. Councilman Charles Barron was the sole holdout.

“We will regret this,” said Barron, urging his colleagues to have the courage to vote no and “send it back to the drawing board.”
Council members who defended their votes in support expressed immense respect for Councilwoman Margaret Chin’s efforts. They applauded her attempts to negotiate all sides, while maintaining their displeasure with the plan despite the modifications.

Chin, whose district covers Greenwich Village, stated she had not originally supported the proposal, but tried to keep an open mind and find a way to achieve a tolerable medium for all groups involved.

“I’m confident this proposal strikes the appropriate balance,” said Chin. “It holds NYU to its responsibility as a good neighbor.” Chin explained that NYU had made significant concessions and no one got everything they wanted.

“I wholeheartedly believe NYU’s growth will occur at a sustainable pace and not overwhelm the Village,” she said, adding that the school’s willingness to cooperate in the process had been encouraging.

Council members acknowledged continuing chasms between the community and the University. Councilman Vincent Ignizio urged NYU, “Now the real work begins for you. The community has issues with you…Start the rebuilding process today.”

The primary modifications to the original plan include a 20 percent (70,000 square feet) reduction in overall density for an approximate 1.93 million-square-foot expansion, space dedicated to community use, an increase in publicly accessible space and NYU taking responsibility for the maintenance of these open spaces.

“I have put in place strong checks and balances to ensure that NYU holds up its end of the bargain,” said Chin. “If NYU fails to do so, there will be consequences.”

These “checks and balances” include funds set aside to make sure the school adheres to its promises. The university will create a yearly endowment of $150,000 toward open space maintenance, proving they want to move beyond questions of trust to tangible verification.
Brown, when questioned by Councilwoman Jessica Lappin on how the school would fund the project, said financial support would come largely from philanthropy, working capital and fundraising, adding that a certain amount of debt is to be expected. With regard to tuition, she said: “There is always upward pressure on tuition.”

Before the plan went to vote, community member Georgina Bedrosian, who lives in the area in question and opposes the plan, said she was afraid council members would accept some version of the plan.

“It lies primarily on Chin,” said Bedrosian. “We little people can make a lot of noise, but [We’ve] lost out to big real estate.”
Throughout the presentation process, disparaging gestures and outcry from audience members revealed there is still significant tension among community members who feel NYU is not being honest and forthcoming, particularly with regard to public space accessibility and conversion.

Following the vote in favor of the plan, Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, called the plan’s passage a violation of public trust.

“The changes are less bad,” said Berman, “but not less bad enough.” Berman explained that the Council has a strong tendency to defer to local council members, in this case Chin.

NYU Vice President Alicia Hurley said to the press of the Council’s decision: “It’s so important for us to have these opportunities.”
As the session concluded, several audience members were escorted out, chanting: “Shame on you, Chin, you’ve killed the Village!”
The full City Council will convene Tuesday, July 24, to provide the final vote on the plan.

Jazz Hands Courtesy of Alissa Fleck

There’s no “behind the scenes” of a City Council hearing, particularly one as contentious and impassioned as the recent hearing on NYU’s proposed expansion. Indeed the spectacle unfolded without pretense.

(by Alissa Fleck)

Last week at 8 a.m. on the morning of the hearing, plan opponents clutching massive, colorful banners flooded the City Hall steps in protest. They were tree-huggers, “village crazies,” dejected faculty, curmudgeons and idealists alike.

They fluttered their signs in the air while speakers growled into the microphone in front of them. Unfortunately the marriage of wind and a lackluster microphone muted most of the speeches.

One speaker said: “NYU tells us they will create open space!”

“IT’S A LIE!” shouted someone behind me. “IT’S A LIE!” joined others in chorus.

At the rally’s conclusion, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) Executive Director Andrew Berman, who, with his vehemence could have stepped straight out of a Kinks song, asked the press if they had any questions.

Not a moment after he’d asked, protesters behind him broke out into raucous chant, replete with fist pumps. After a few minutes, Berman turned to the mass behind him: “Everybody get your regulation-sized signs,” he said. He said something about how it would be a long day, I expected him to add few would make it out alive.

The subsequent rally in support of the proposal consisted of approximately three people. “I’m in favor!” said one man, urging press people to come forward and ask him questions. They appeared reluctant, as though they were waiting on someone more noteworthy.

As I tried to make my way into City Hall, a crazed bottleneck formed at the entrance. Security attempted to filter in an even number of supporters and opponents, but made exceptions for anyone who said they had to use the bathroom. As men in “BUILD IT!” shirts trickled in, protesters, well, protested.

“Why do they get to go in and not us?” they demanded.

So many protesters filled the balcony, a few lay down on the steps. A woman on the ground next to me, dressed for what could have been a day of gardening, appeared to slip in and out of consciousness.

In the crowd, another woman turned around and addressed the man behind her:

“You’re a union guy, aren’t you!” she said.

“Look I need a job, I got a kid,” he said. “I don’t even really know what’s going on.”

“That’s the problem!” She attempted to unload one of her extra signs on him. “Come on, why don’t you just take it?”

A security officer tried to bring order by organizing testifiers.

“Is there a Milton in the crowd?” he asked.

“I’m Milton,” said an older man in the balcony.

“Are you in favor or opposition?”

“What?”

(It took a few more tries, as Milton was evidently hard of hearing.)

“Are you in favor or opposition?”

“OPPOSED ALL THE WAY!” he shouted down from the balcony. The crowd exploded with applause.

“Another outbreak like that and you will be kicked out for the rest of the hearing,” said the security officer.

Council Member Mark Weprin insisted audience members use jazz hands only to express approval. The consistent reprimands and reminders to use jazz hands only did little to suppress the boos, hisses, laughter and chants which, when done in unison, could not be attributed to any single defiant individual.

I briefly wandered down from the balcony to see if I could get closer to the proceedings. I walked into the ground floor section, only to be interrogated by a security guard. I told him I would just stand in the back for a moment. “No, you won’t,” he said. I walked back out of the chambers and a woman outside snarled (in reference to NYU President John Sexton): “Is he still SPOUTING that BULLSH*T?” “The bullsh*t is unbelievable!” responded another.

Sexton’s speech went something like this:

“We need to be able to attract an outstanding genomicist.” Laughter.  (Maybe people think are envisioning someone studying adorable garden gnomes.)

“It would be obstructive to build anywhere else.” More laughter.

“Many of our students work three jobs and it’s because they want to be here.” Riptide of laughter.

“This is not a development project.” Laughter plus a few audience members get booted.

Often these proceedings boil down to sleights of rhetoric and shiftiness, as when extensive confusion ensued over the delineations between “green space,” “open space,” “open green space,” “public space” and “public green space.”

Then there was the discussion during which I decided, three hours in, it was time for my personal intermission. With more highfalutin jargon and sophistication than a high-schooler being disciplined, but no less evasion and otherwise not much difference, Councilman Robert Jackson drilled Sexton on whether or not he was being honest. Filtering out the excess, it went roughly something like this:

“But are you actually being as honest as possible?”

“Yes, I am being honest.”

“Okay, but, are you actually being honest?”

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Commons

If you’re like me, you’re tired of the same old hot dog-eating contests and day-drunk doldrums of Fourths of July past. This year, you’re looking for a new way to declare your independence that doesn’t involve increasingly stimulating ways of risking life and limb to outdo the last year’s thrills. I’ve compiled the following list of ways to add a little nonflammable—but no less fun—spark to your 4th of July:

1. “Shopping Bag Intricacies”

Have you ever admired the beauty of street trash, dancing around in the wind’s delicate fingers and chasing you down the street? Artist Gustavo Galvan’s “Shopping Bag Intricacies” features “eleven wearable structures made from a variety of found materials, such as deconstructed plastic bottles, shopping bags, gold leaf and some intricate weavings by hand.” The exhibit runs until July 15 at Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art on Staten Island.

2. Hit up an adult playground 

“What if there was a way to combine exercising with the carefree spontaneity of jungle gyms and forest green monkey bars?” asks Gothamist in a recent article about the city’s new adult playgrounds. The first adult playground, a pilot program for more like it  across all five boroughs (to arrive in the next year and a half), has already been built in the Bronx. If you want to swing away the picnic calories, make your way to the only adult playground—so far—this Fourth. The name could be a misnomer, as the “playground” is by all accounts a child’s playground minus the fun stuff.

3. Instead of gorging yourself at the picnic, throw your food on the ground and take an artistic picture

This is finally a way to achieve semi-fame in the City. Alternately, you can stumble across somebody else’s street food and snap a photo. The blog Street Tucker artistically captures food left to rot on city streets, in a stylized, freegan feast for the eyes. It’s like dumpster diving except your body won’t be so riddled with parasites you can’t go back to work on Thursday.

4. Finally understand existence

Scientists in Geneva believe they have uncovered the “God particle” and plan to announce it to the world on Wednesday, according to the Seattle Times. “The focus of the excitement is the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle that, if confirmed, could help explain why matter has mass, which combines with gravity to give an object weight,” reports the Times. If you’re lucky, you could find religion this Fourth of July. I’m not going to draw the connection between announcement of the “God particle” and American Independence Day, but I fear someone will.

5. Go on a date with Goat Guy 

We don’t know for sure if he’s available over the holiday, but Cyrus Fakroddin, who is famous for dragging his goat around the city and feeding it pizza, says one major draw of Cocoa the goat is she’s a “total chick magnet,” reports DNA Info. Even if you can’t get a date, Fakroddin and Cocoa can frequently be seen strolling through the Village. Their favorite destination is Joe’s Pizza, and they’ll probably be around all summer so long as the NYPD continues to think a goat eating pizza is worthy of tying up traffic.

6. Enjoy Sasaki Garden for what could be the last time 

Especially if NYU President John Sexton gets his way and the NYU expansion passes City Council. Local residents and NYU faculty recently held a mock funeral for the park, which is literally off the beaten path. Sasaki Garden is tucked between two towers of the Washington Square Village superblock, and will be demolished if the Sexton plan passes. The park, which enjoys such a low profile the school has no qualms about razing it, is a place where many seek solace and zen wisdom. If this is not quite offbeat enough and you want to, say,  go topless…let’s face it: it’s hot and everybody’s doing it.

7. Fight people with swords (perhaps in reenactment of the Revolutionary War) 

If your style is more bellicose than celebratory, the New Amsterdam Fencing Academy offers open fencing Mondays and Wednesdays, along with adult fencing classes those same nights from 7:30-9pm. The Academy is located in Manhattan on Broadway (bet.104th and 105th Sts.)

By Laurent Berstecher

It is no secret: going to college is becoming an increasingly expensive choice. NYU’s recent tuition hike for 2012-13 is simply following the trend, as the average cost of attending college in the United States has increased tenfold in the past 60 years. In 1950, a year at NYU would have cost a mere $496 (this represents about $4,500 today,) while the 2012/ 2013 tuition for Stern Business School, is estimated at around $51,562.

The phenomenon is not NYU-bound, and tuition has been steadily increasing in both public and private universities around the country. According to FinAid, tuition costs are raised by an average of 8% a year at the national level.  In retrospect, NYU’s 2012-2013 4% hike, the lowest in years, may not be that bad. But 4% of $50,000 is still a lot of money.

Seeing no realistic end to ever-increasing tuition fees, it may be tempting to ask where all the money goes. As far as NYU is concerned, the school depends on tuition for most of its expenses, since it does not benifate from large endowments like most of its competitors. Thus, NYU president John Sexton has constantly been reminding his students that their money is necessary to maintain the university’s standards of excellence.

While those tough financial conditions may discourage many from pursuing a college education, NYU has seen its numbers of applications steadily increase over the past few years. There is thus no real risk for the school to run out of students, and tuition does not look like it will be dropping anytime soon.

However, there is good news for those of you who benefit from scholarships or other financial aid, as they have been increased accordingly to match the new tuition costs. Meanwhile, national student loan debt is silently growing, reaching a record $1 trillion in April 2012.