Piano, SOM’s Columbia Plan Stirs Controversy

Piano, SOM’s Columbia Plan Stirs Controversy
June 18, 2007
by Dorian Davis

Renzo Piano is not bashful about his plan to raze century-old, masonry-clad factories and tenements in West Harlem and replace them with big, crisp buildings of steel and glass—a new campus for Columbia University that resembles Metropolis more than it does the existing neighborhood. “Cities are bound to change,” he says, “You have to accept it.”

Images courtesy Renzo Piano Building Workshop / Skidmore

Owings & Merrill

Created by Renzo Piano and SOM, Columbia University’s new

17-acre campus will replace low-rise warehouses and

tenements with glass-walled towers.

Pressed for space at its original campus in Morningside Heights, 10 blocks south, Columbia hired Piano in 2003. He created a sprawling, city-within-a-city that covers 17 acres with 6.8 million square feet of box-shaped towers; Skidmore Owings & Merrill formulated the urban plan. But to make way for this development, Columbia must contend with three privately owned warehouses that refuse to sell, including one that was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. Its plan to demolish them is raising the specter of eminent domain and pitting Columbia against Harlem residents.

Piano says the results will be worth the controversy. Punctuated by tree-lined quads, his buildings are meant to bring a new, open sense to the neighborhood. Their ground floors will host retail stores and restaurants. “We put the dirty functions—garbage, ramps, parking, and loading—underground, because they make a very opaque environment, and we put the research facilities up higher, so that everything on the ground is more transparent and public,” he explains.

Columbia’s plan took a big step forward this summer following the completion of an environmental impact statement and feasibility study by Thornton Tomasetti and AKRF. The city’s Planning Department is scheduled to start the land review process today, giving the local Community Board 60 days to review Columbia’s plans and suggest changes. If approved, construction would be completed in two phases: the first by 2015, the second by 2030.

Meanwhile, the Community Board’s own plan, called 197A—which includes more preservation and avoids eminent domain—goes before public hearings in July.

Developing a new campus almost as big as the original one requires extensive dialogue with neighborhood residents, Piano concedes. “Listening is a very tough job, because you have to listen to the right voices, and sometimes the right voices are very little voices.” But residents wonder if, so far, the architect has listened only to Columbia. His plan calls for retaining only a handful of existing buildings: three small, brick structures dating to the early 1900s. They include a terra cotta-faced building where the architect makes his local office. “We saved buildings that will give a sense of the history of this neighborhood. It’s a mix of the past but, at the same time, the courage to go ahead and change,” he says.

Neighborhood residents and others contend that more preservation is warranted. “How can only three or four buildings preserve the character of a neighborhood,” says Eric Washington, author of Manhattanville, a history of the area. “That’s a lot of responsibility for four buildings.”

Instead of demolishing some of the older structures, residents want Columbia to build its campus around them. “It has the opportunity to embrace such a rich community,” says Anne Whitman, owner of Hudson Moving and Storage, which could be seized if the state, prodded by Columbia, invokes eminent domain.

For its part, the university contends that an influx of shopping, dining, working, and living opportunities will quiet dissent. “This is an area that is going to change, and should change in significant ways,” says Columbia University president Lee Bollinger. It’s a sentiment that Piano shares: “You can’t embalm a city,” he says.

Photo: © Charles Linn

The owners of a storage facility slated

for demolition protest Columbia's plans"

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/070618piano.asp

NB - As this article did not fully reflect the "controversial" part as

the editors used their sharpest knives to excise any real controversial

remarks I include below the e-mail exchange between me and the

author while he was in the process of writing the article. -JRM

Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 08:28:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: "J Reyes-Montblanc"
Subject: Re: Piano's Columbia Plan Stirs Controversy
To: dorian.davis@cuny.edu

Of course the editor took the "controversy" out of the article turning

it into a "puff piece" I regret they did this to you so early in your career.

dorian.davis@cuny.edu wrote:

I know.....

I apologize.

I included them.

There were space limitations, and the editors cut several others

who were interviewed as well. I appreciate the help, though.


-----Original Message-----
From: J Reyes-Montblanc
Sent: Tue, June 19, 2007 10:53 am
To: dorian.davis@cuny.edu
Subject: Re: Piano's Columbia Plan Stirs Controversy

Thank you. Can't help notice that none of my remarks replying

Piano made it into the article.

Regards

Jord

dorian.davis@cuny.edu wrote:
Jordi-

Hi.

Here is the article we corresponded about several months ago.

It will also appear in the print version of the magazine in July.

"Piano's Columbia Plan Stirs Controversy"

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/070618piano.asp

Dorian Davis

-----Original Message-----
From: J Reyes-Montblanc
Sent: Fri, April 6, 2007 4:17 pm
To: dorian.davis@cuny.edu
Subject: Re: CB 9 Meetings / Public Record

Yes it is possible. Please contact Mr. Lawrence McClean

at the office (212) 864-6200 and he will arrange it.

Regards

JRM

dorian.davis@journalism.cuny.edu wrote:
Jordi-

Hi.

I noticed that some of the meetings that I've attended at CB9

have been tape recorded for the public record. I'd like to

come in and listen to a couple of the tapes.

If I can provide you with the exact dates of the meetings

I'm interested in, would it be possible?

Let me know.

Dorian Davis
NYC News Service
Graduate School of Journalism
City University of New York
dorian.davis@cuny.edu
______________________________________________

-----Original Message-----
From: "J Reyes-Montblanc"
Sent: Mon, April 2, 2007 3:26 pm
To: dorian.davis@cuny.edu
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Renzo Piano on Manhattanville Follow-up

Great!! Thank you.

dorian.davis@cuny.edu wrote:
It looks like it will be published in an architectural magazine.

As soon as I get it back from the editor, I will send you a copy, and when
it is available online, I will send you a link.

-----Original Message-----
From: "J Reyes-Montblanc"
Sent: Thu, March 29, 2007 2:50 pm
To: dorian.davis@cuny.edu
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Renzo Piano on Manhattanville Follow-up

Thanks!!

dorian.davis@cuny.edu wrote: its coming.

i will be sure to send a link.

-----Original Message-----
From: "J Reyes-Montblanc"
Sent: Thu, March 29, 2007 2:29 pm
To: dorian.davis@cuny.edu
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Renzo Piano on Manhattanville Follow-up

Dorian

Did this article ever get published? If yes may I have a copy or a link if online?

Regards

Jord


J Reyes-Montblanc wrote:\

Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 10:07:30 -0700 (PDT)
From: J Reyes-Montblanc
Subject: Re: Renzo Piano on Manhattanville
To: dorian.davis@cuny.edu

dorian.davis@cuny.edu wrote:

Jordi-

Hi.

Renzo made the point repeatedly that it was important to listen to the
community, and take it into account, and even called this exchange
"fundamental."

Having said that:

PIANO: “The problem with discussions in a community is that the voices you
hear are not necessarily ones with much to say. Listening is a very tough
job, because you have to listen to the right voices, and sometimes the
right voices are very little voices. You have to listen to people who
don't say anything, to the silent multitude.¬

Any response?

Piano is correct and fully applicable in a "democracy". Thank God we do
not live in a "democracy".

We live in our great Representative Republic and our Board Members
represent the community opinions, feelings, aspirations and emotions.
Our Founding Fathers understood the "silent multitude syndrome" quite
well and that is why they devised the Representative Republic type of
government "by the people for the people" and Community Boards are the
"closest to the people" level of government.

Further comments:

I don't believe Piano is familiar with how our system works and I do not
recall he ever even to have visited any of the monthly CB9M'
Manhattanville Rezoning Task Force, lo these many years so he doesn't
really understand how the "silent multitudes" communicate in NYC.

One of the 2 things that CU's voices (and Piano is one of them) do is to
try to diminish the voices of the community and in particular CB9M's.

Another thing they do is to promote the idea that CU's objectives and
possible contributions to "health and well being of humanity" places CU
above the needs of the lowly local unwashed bi-ped residents and the
even more lowly "greedy and uncaring" property-owners, who refuse to
sell. This establishes some sort "institutional neo-eugenics" in which
the "best & brightest" (CU) are to be encouraged and incentivised to
reproduce and grow while the "ugly & dimmer" local residents needs and
wants have no value or rights in view of the grandiosely superior
accomplishments, current and future contributions of CU.

Please keep this private until publication.

Thanks!

Dorian Davis
NYC News Service
Graduate School of Journalism
City University of New York
(917) 568-8664
dorian.davis@cuny.edu
______________________________________________
Dorian Davis started in entertainment as a weekly panelist on MTV's pop
culture series MTV Hits. He has researched and developed a special for
MTV, where he was the only conservative, and contributed to a special for
LOGO. His work has been published in the NY Daily News.




-----Original Message-----
From: "J Reyes-Montblanc"
Sent: Thu, March 15, 2007 5:36 pm
To: dorian.davis@cuny.edu
Subject: Re: Renzo Piano on Manhattanville

Yes I would. Please e-mail them.

dorian.davis@cuny.edu wrote: Jordi-

Hi.

As you may recall, I've been working on a piece on Renzo Piano, architect
of the proposed new CU campus in Manhattanville. I spoke with him in
person on Monday, and he said some interesting things about the plan, and
about the community itself.

Could I ask you to respond to a couple of his quotes?

Obviously, I would ask that you keep them private until publication.

Dorian Davis
NYC News Service
Graduate School of Journalism
City University of New York
______________________________________________
Dorian Davis started in entertainment as a weekly panelist on MTV's pop
culture series MTV Hits. He has researched and developed a special for
MTV, where he was the only conservative, and contributed to a special for
LOGO. His work has been published in the NY Daily News.