Future Activities and Goals

Photo Credit:RAMI BOUNDOUKI/CDS

W. HARLEM EXPANSION, CAUGHT ON FILM

Leah Yananton, a student in the school of General Studies and current resident of Manhattanville, has created a documentary film about Columbia's expansion into the area. The film, entitled 'Columbia Expansion Project' will premiere May 2nd at the Columbia University Film Productions film festival in Lerner Cinema.

Tent City

Students 'Camp' to Protest Expansion

On April 27th, the Coalition to Preserve Community along with the Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification set up camp on Columbia' campus. Their actions were to raise awareness and start a dialogue about Columbia's proposed expansion into Manhattanville. From 10 am to 10 pm members of CPC and others rallied in support of keeping Manhattanville strong with Columbia's interference.

Tent City: PRESS RELEASE

HARLEM RESIDENTS AND BUSINESSES PROTEST COLUMBIA'S EXPANSION PLAN

WE ARE ON CAMPUS TODAY, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 10AM to 10PM, TO PROTEST THE COLUMBIA PLAN AND TO SUPPORT THE ALTERNATIVE 197A LAND USE PLAN FROM CB9.

ENTER AT 116TH ST. AND STOP BY BOLLINGERVILLE - OUR TENT CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CAMPUS (TENTS PROVIDED BY THE COLUMBIA STUDENT COALITION ON EXPANSION AND GENTRIFICATION.) WE ARE HERE TO TALK TO STUDENTS, FACULTY, WORKERS, AND TO COMMUNITY MEMBERS WHO LIVE BOTH NEARBY AND CITYWIDE.PRESS CONFERENCE: Noon

RALLY AND MUSIC: 5:00PM - 7:00PM

NEXT MEETING OF THE COALITION TO PRESERVE COMMUNITY: THURSDAY, MAY 26, 6:30PM, AT ST. MARY'S CHURCH, 521 West 126th Street.

We support: (1) Preservation and creation of affordable housing for long term local residents at rents reflecting Community Board 9's current income levels. 2) Economic development that protects locally owned businesses and provides living wage jobs with a future for local residents. 3) Sufficient community facilities to provide the social services essential for the well being of CB9 residents. 4) Preservation of the historical and architectural integrity of existing structures and new structures that are contextual to the size and bulk of surrounding ones. 5) A healthy and safe environment for all of our residents and workers. No biotech-on-the-Hudson, near our residential neighborhoods. [[ For additional information contact:]] Coalition to Preserve Community (CPC), P O. BOX 50 Manhattanville Station, 365 West 125th Street, New York, NY 10027. Email: bfrappy24@aol.com. Call 212-666-6426.

PRESS RELEASE:

For Immediate Release: April 21, 2005 CONTACT: Tom DeMott (917) 969-0669

April 27 Tent City Protest Against Columbia's Expansion Tent City: 10:00am-10:00pm Press conference at noon Demonstration at 5:00pm Columbia's campus, college walk (116th Street) between Broadway and Amsterdam

Not since 1968 has Columbia University faced such community opposition as now exists toward its expansion plan in West Harlem. Community activists have tried to tell Columbia for two years that business owners and buildings full of tenants will not accept eviction. But Columbia has been deaf to community concerns and will not agree to Community Board 9’s clearly-stated tenets for development as laid out in the 197-A Plan. Now, the Coalition to Preserve Community and the West Harlem Business Group are bringing their message directly to the campus. Invited by the Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification, community residents will be camping out on the Morningside campus. "Bollingerville Tent City" will be located at the scene of many historic protests, the Sundial in the center of the campus.

Columbia Wants Eminent Domain

Disclosure of a letter last week shows that Columbia asked the state to initiate legal action towards invoking eminent domain in West Harlem. Columbia made a clandestine agreement with the Empire State Development Corp whereby the University gave ESDC $300,000 to cover various expenses. This backroom deal has escalated the tension between Columbia trustees and administrators and members of the community.

Columbia representatives have consistently stated that the University had nothing to do with State decisions regarding eminent domain, but all the while it has been an active participant in the State process which would permit the University to bulldoze the neighborhood. A pro-expansion editorial in the Columbia Spectator called this "a disheartening sign of arrogance." Others in the Harlem community consider it reminiscent of the University's racist decision in 1968 to build a separate Harlem entrance in a gymnasium placed in a City park. This news, combined with another revelation—that Columbia is shelling out millions in a lobbying effort second only to that promoting the Jets stadium—has dramatized the disparities between a monied Ivy League institution and one of the most impoverished, yet most historically important inner city neighborhoods in the world.

"We don't have the elite connections and Columbia's resources, but we do have real neighborhoods where generations of families have been able to make our own history," said Hamidullah Al-Amin of the Coalition to Preserve Community. Al-Amin added, "It's a great working class community. We want to show the students and people who are willing to talk to us, that there is something here worth preserving, that we are not second class citizens who can be tricked out of our homes and businesses."

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