Capital New York

Inside Walmart's slow, quiet campaign to crack New York City

A handsome out-of-work carpenter is the star of one advertisement Walmart has been distributing locally. In it, he hopes for the City Council to resist the urgings of "special interests" (revealed in another ad to be the grocery workers' union and city-based food retailers) because, as it reads, "I need a job;" the buildings workers unions have backed Walmart's expansion into New York City. More

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By Nancy Scola

Walmart's campaign to change New Yorkers' minds about them

See a map of Walmart locations that shows just how prevalent they are just outside the borders of the city, and see some of the literature they are distributing to New York homes to convince people their opponents are wrong and Walmart belongs in New York City.

Posted on April 25th, 2012 1:53pm

A poll finds most N.Y.U. faculty oppose big expansion plan, but are open to changing their minds

A poll of New York University faculty, the results of which were released yesterday, has found that a majority of them oppose the school's ambitious expansion plans. But there are reasons for the administration to hope they may yet move faculty to their way of thinking. More

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By Nancy Scola

N.Y.U. president hugs Scott Stringer for his OK on an expansion plan, but faculty, and some neighbors, are unmoved

“I also expect that at some point virtually all of my colleagues”—the university president, John Sexton, a professor of both law and religion, himself continues to teach—“have that moment where, as academics and people who think about the advancement of thought, and think in terms of generations, that they’ll recall that spot in themselves where it’s a worthy thing to plant a tree under which someone else will sit.” More

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By Nancy Scola

Faculty step up opposition to New York University expansion plans, department by department

Late last month, the university's Department of Politics voted by a wide margin to oppose N.Y.U.'s ambitious expansion plan in a resolution. That such a large and institutionally important department should take this measure raised eyebrows, but it was not a unique occurrence. The departments of Comparative Literature, Performance Studies, Religious Studies, Anthropology and Sociology have also voted to oppose it. Other N.Y.U. departments are said to be considering passing similar resolutions—or are considering the consideration of such resolutions, including English, History and Economics. More

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By Nancy Scola

N.Y.U.'s Alicia Hurley takes on intransigent neighbors, explains how they will sell faculty on the big 2031 expansion plan

"The community always said, 'we want a plan, we want a plan,'" Hurley said. "This is the only plan we can present."

"We've spent the last 20, 30 years building our facilities around the community," said Hurley. "Do I think it's right to just continue growing in the community and not try to absorb some of this on our own property? No, I don't. I think it's time to really consider more carefully how we should be expanding. We're trying to isolate it." More

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By Nancy Scola

In the dot-nyc land rush, unanswered questions about who will benefit as the city signs a $3.6 M contract

For advocates and elected officials who have been urging the city to fight for the .nyc domain, questions are popping up about how the tremendous potential benefits to city organizations and businesses will be managed fairly. And the brief appearance of a copy of the contract with Neustar that was available for public review at the offices of the city's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, raised significant questions, too. More

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By Nancy Scola

A debate about N.Y.U.'s expansion plans gets academic, in more ways than one

"For N.Y.U. to survive, it seems to me that they do have to get the space for future education," Hack said. "You could argue that N.Y.U. is the most important institution in New York City," Gary Hack, professor of urban design at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Design, told the crowd.

The audience actually laughed. But Hack persisted: "There needs to be a way for them to accomplish their objectives and the neighborhood to be okay with the way they accomplish their objectives." More

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By Nancy Scola

Local businesses, including swank Blue Hill's Dan Barber, come out against N.Y.U. expansion plan

Small but famous neighborhood institutions like the restaurant Blue Hill New York, Cafe Wha? and Bleecker Bob's are among the local businesses and block associations on the roster of Villagers for a Sustainable Neighborhood, which objects, the group said today, to the NYU2031 plan's "Midtown-like" scope. More

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By Nancy Scola

Now that open data is law in New York, meet Carole Post, the enforcer

She points to a Department of Parks census of street tree demographics. Inside city government, she said, the reaction was, “Who cares?”

But Parks didn’t see any particular reason not to release it to the public. After all, they were using the data to do their work, and it was just sitting around on their computer systems. That information formed the basis of an app called Trees Near You, a mobile tool that allows urban dwellers to click on a nearby tree and pull up details on its kind and size, along with the Wikipedia entry on the particular type of tree.

“We were able, at no cost,” Post said, “to satisfy an unknown public need.” More

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By Nancy Scola