Columbia Spectator - CU Letter on Expansion Incites Protest

CU Letter on Expansion Incites Protest
by Erin Durkin
Spectator Staff Writer

April 21, 2005

Community activists gathered at Columbia’s gates yesterday to display an increasingly organized and official opposition to the use of eminent domain in Manhattanville.

Attorney Norman Siegel, who represents several Manhattanville business owners who have refused to sell to Columbia, organized yesterday’s press conference, which included a veritable who’s who of the anti-expansion movement.

Vying for attention with the chants of striking grad students, they repeated many criticisms they have made since they learned last Friday that Columbia had asked the Empire State Development Corporation to consider condemning property to make way for the University’s expansion project.

Siegel described the ultimate agreement between Columbia and the ESDC as “extremely troubling.” The letter, which was obtained by Spectator under the Freedom of Information Law, revealed that the University agreed to provide $300,000 to cover the authority’s costs in considering condemnation and other options for the area.

Siegel urged the ESDC to make public any other documents relating to the state’s possible use of eminent domain to forcibly buy property in the expansion zone, located from 125th to 133rd Streets between Broadway and 12th Avenue. He also called on ESDC representatives to “come to West Harlem and meet with the community, and to do it as soon as possible.”

ESDC officials noted after the letter’s release that any use of eminent domain would be accompanied by public reviews, but that these reviews would occur later as the condemnation process moves forward.

“If Columbia is open, if Columbia is forthright, if Columbia is fair, then there is a possibility that there can be cooperation,” Siegel said. Otherwise, opposition to the Manhattanville project would become “Manhattan-wide, citywide,” Siegel said.

The activists backed his claim and referred to the official support they gained from leaders including the New York City public advocate and the Manhattan Borough president.

Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, chairman of Community Board 9, presented a letter that New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum sent to Columbia Senior Executive Vice President Robert