Ink: Columbia and a Chair Endowed With Rust

New York Times E-Mail This
This page was sent to you by: whitmananne [long-time West Manhattanville Business Owner]

The boarded up properties that are strewn with trash are carefully engineered to look as bad as possilble. The for rent signs are a ruse, call the numbers and nothing is available.

The deliberate blight in the area is a Columbia tactic. None of our businesses are anything like the eyesores that they have created. Columbia should also be taken to task on the issue of nurturing fear and intimidation within our community.

Sending letters out that you just can't remain in your building or stating that you can deal with us now, or deal with the state later...not acceptable.

NEW YORK REGION March 31, 2005
Ink: Columbia and a Chair Endowed With Rust
By DAVID GONZALEZ
Trash on Columbia’s land is seen as more than just litter.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Click here: The New York Times > New York Region > Ink: Columbia and a Chair Endowed With Rust
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/31/nyregion/31ink.html?ex=1112936400&en=bd4341771494cbf2&ei=5070


March 31, 2005
INK


Columbia and a Chair Endowed With Rust
By DAVID GONZALEZ

broken chair rests upside down inside a lot on the southwest corner of West 130th Street and Broadway. The steadfast sentry has braved snow and rain, heat and cold. A melancholy soul would say it is a lonely remnant of a career, a life, a useful past.

Problem is, the chair is hardly alone: broken glass, flattened cartons, old boots and about 20 55-gallon drums holding heaven knows what have kept it company on the fenced-in lot, once home to a gas station. The castoffs - some untouched for months - may speak more to the future, and that worries some local business owners.

The lot belongs to Columbia University, which has been scooping up property in Manhattanville for an ambitious campus expansion. Some people who have refused to sell their buildings fear they may be forced out if the state declares the area blighted, seizes their property through eminent domain and then allows Columbia to use it for the "public good."

That beat-up chair could prove quite useful.

"Columbia has created the blight on purpose," said Anne Zuhusky Whitman, the owner of Hudson Moving and Storage, which is next door to the forlorn chair. "They never had trash in front of that place when the prior tenant was there. Ever since Columbia purchased it, they want to make it look as bad as possible so they can go ahead with their blight story."

She and other owners who refuse to budge said several other Columbia-owned parcels have looked equally trashy. Yesterday, a yard behind the old diner on West 131st Street and 12th Avenue was still cluttered with chest-high weeds, tossed tires, plastic pipe and wooden planks.

"All those random, inanimate objects are symbolic," said Norman Siegel, the lawyer representing seven property owners fighting Columbia. "They demonstrate the fact that Columbia is ignoring conditions and is perhaps hoping the neighborhood deteriorates." He said the university should not benefit from its inaction.

Joe Ienuso, Columbia's acting vice president for facilities management, said he had not heard any complaints about garbage. He added that it was "rather unfortunate" that people would accuse the university of intentionally neglecting the neighborhood.

"There are some barrels in the former gas station," he said. "But it is an area that has a containment fence. It's not like there is any trash on the public sidewalks."

No, that would be at another Columbia parcel on West 130th Street, where everything from fried chicken boxes to a soggy heap of plastic wrap has littered the sidewalk for the past two days.

"Anything that requires attention will be taken care of," Mr. Ienuso said.

Nick Sprayregen, the owner of several buildings in the disputed zone, insists that he will not move. He has written to the university's board, he said, but no one has responded.

"If they take eminent domain off the table, my fight will be finished," he said. "If it is taken off, then we have a level playing field."

Maybe even a tidier one.