Stephen Rex Brown Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society, opened the press conference today.

Around 90 opponents of N.Y.U.’s controversial expansion urged Borough President Scott Stringer to disapprove of the plan, reiterating their longstanding claims that it would overwhelm the neighborhood and destroy much-needed green space.

“This kind of development is character-defining in all the wrong ways,” said Simeon Bankoff, the executive director of the Historic Districts Council and one of over a dozen speakers at the rally this afternoon. “This plan will not build up this section of the Village, it will destroy it.” Read more…

Elizabeth Ferrara Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council said the plan would create much-needed construction jobs.

In the first rally of its kind, advocates of N.Y.U.’s controversial expansion gathered yesterday at City Hall calling on Borough President Scott M. Stringer to approve the plan.

About 35 people, business owners, union leaders, and construction workers among them, attended the roughly 15-minute gathering in support of the university’s proposal that would add four new buildings south of Washington Square Park.

“We’re here today asking Borough President Stringer to recognize that N.Y.U.’s growth strategy is an essential part of securing the financial future of small businesses in Greenwich Village,” said Tony Juliano, president of the local Greenwich Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, which represents around 200 businesses in surrounding neighborhoods.

It was clear that the approval for the plan dubbed N.Y.U. 2031 is getting down to crunch time. The event amounted to a formal endorsement from the Building and Construction Trades Council, which is led by the influential Gary LaBarbera.
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Natalie Rinn John Sexton addresses a student.

John Sexton, the president of N.Y.U., addressed questions about the school’s considerable expansion plan at a Town Hall meeting earlier tonight. At the open forum for students, Dr. Sexton addressed a recent outpouring of community opposition, as demonstrated by a unanimous vote by Community Board 2 on Thursday disapproving of the proposed expansion near Washington Square Park.

“The community board vote did not surprise me,” he said, standing before a room filled with undergraduate and graduate students at the university’s Kimball Hall. “It would have been surprising if there had been a single dissent.”

He added, “You learn that there are a small minority of people that you can’t reach. They’ve gotta be what they are and they’re not going to be persuaded right or wrong.”

A recent Ph.D. graduate in comparative literature, Patrick Gallagher, pressed the president on being insensitive. “It sounds like what you’re saying is the community is always wrong. Has there ever been a time when you’ve come around to their point of view?”

“First of all, respectfully, I don’t think I said the community is always wrong,” Mr. Sexton responded. “The dialogue with the community has been fulsome for three years and 40 [community] meetings, and we’ve made changes in the plan based on things that were said.”
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Natalie Rinn

In a protest organized by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, a handful of representatives from the N.Y.U. Grad Student Organizing Committee distributed flyers outside of Kimball Hall at 246 Greene Street, where N.Y.U. President John Sexton was expected to hold a town hall with students at 4 p.m. The flyers, also signed by N.Y.U. Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, demanded that attendees of the meeting ask why Mr. Sexton was not respecting the group’s right to organize.

Check back here for an update from the town hall, where the subject of the university’s controversial expansion plan just might come up.

Update: N.Y.U. President John Sexton: ‘We Need More Space’

Natalie Rinn Mr. Berman, right, at a protest on Thursday.

One of the most vocal opponents of New York University’s proposed expansion near Washington Square Park wants Borough President Scott M. Stringer to hold a public hearing before making an advisory decision about the controversial plan next month.

Andrew Berman, Executive Director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, drafted a letter to Mr. Stringer last Friday as the Borough President began his month-long review of the university’s proposal. The note, which came on the heels of Community Board 2’s unanimous advisory decision last Thursday against the expansion plan, was also signed by 15 community members, including block association leaders, preservationists, and Mark Crispin Miller of N.Y.U. Faculty Against the Sexton Plan. Read more…

Natalie Rinn Protestors held a rally before the Community Board’s vote on the N.Y.U. plan.

The ambitious expansion of New York University faced its first formal rejection last night, as Community Board 2 voted unanimously against the plan, saying it would turn Greenwich Village into a construction site for at least 19 years and fundamentally change the neighborhood for the worse.

Not a single person spoke in favor of the plan during over two hours of testimony in the packed basement of St. Anthony of Padua Church on 154 Sullivan Street. After 115 locals, academics and students skewered the plan that would add four new university buildings and 2.5 million square feet of space just south of Washington Square Park, the board cast its vote in opposition to the expansion dubbed “N.Y.U. 2031.”

“We’re here tonight to firmly reject this plan,” said board chair Brad Hoylman. “It’s clear that there is no support for this insidious plan that would destroy the culture of Greenwich Village.”

Cheers went up from the standing-room only audience after the vote, though its impact is limited, given that it is only an advisory opinion. The project will next be considered by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, the City Planning Commission and the City Council, which will ultimately determine the project’s fate. Read more…

The Landmarks Preservation Commisssion approved N.Y.U.’s application to make changes to the open space at the landmarked University Towers site, following a hearing on April 5. The application represents one element of the university’s revised plans to expand in its core neighborhood. — Kim Davis

Courtesy of N.Y.U. An illustration of a revised development plan by N.Y.U., which includes the construction of a new 14-story building at Bleecker Street and LaGuardia Place.

At a crowded public meeting in Grace Church’s Tuttle Hall Monday night, Greenwich Village greeted New York University’s revised core expansion plan with its own version of a Bronx cheer.

Since withdrawing the proposal to add a fourth tower to the landmarked Silver Towers site, the university has consistently said that it could create some 2 million square feet of new usage in the Washington Square district by developing sites it already owned. The audience seemed surprised, nevertheless, that the university had not looked elsewhere.

A slide presentation by university spokeswoman Alicia Hurley was greeted by hostile interruptions, catcalls and hisses as it became clear that the square footage lost through the cancellation of the so-called “Silver Sliver” had been redistributed to the Morton Williams supermarket site and the block-length “zipper building” on Mercer Street between Bleecker Street and West Houston.

The university has undertaken to donate the bottom seven floors of a new 14-story building at the Morton Williams location to the city for use as a public school. The rest of the building will house almost 200 university students. Existing plans for the “zipper building” have been bulked up to include the hotel development originally planned for the Silver Towers site.
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