Capital New York

A rally against the N.Y.U. expansion plan, but this time it's students and faculty holding the signs

"This is a moment of historical importance," said N.Y.U. professor of media, culture, and communications Mark Crispin Miller at yesterday's rally. He described a 50-year history of neighborhood protests against N.Y.U. expansion plans.

"Never before has the faculty stood with the community," he said. "We're standing with the community now."

Miller is helping to lead a new group that calls itself the NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, or NYUFASP, which was one group involved in organizing the rally. (The "Sexton Plan" is a nickname for NYU 2031, which comes from the name of its foremost proponent, university president John Sexton.) More

Posted on February 22nd, 2012 3:18pm

Cooper Union's identity crisis: What would it mean for the famously free school to charge tuition?

"As I have sought to learn about the history of Cooper Union," said school president Jamshed Bharucha, who was appointed president of the school in July, "there has not been a sustainable budget or financial model for at least forty years, and probably going back further."

Bharucha described a $20 million per annum shortfall. The school is expected to decide in the spring how to best get back on firm financial footing.

Fueling this fight are fundamental differences of belief among students, alumni, board members and faculty at the Cooper Union about the significance of its free education to its mission. Bharucha has described it as "a feature"; school administrators talk in terms of access. But others see the free-for-all mantra as the very reason for Cooper Union's existence. More

Posted on December 16th, 2011 10:00am

Judge gives Occupy Wall Street lawyers an extension to expand their lawsuit against the city and Brookfield

Alan Levine, one of the attorneys representing the protesters, told Capital in an interview that the Occupy Wall Street attorneys were asking for the extension because, in part, since the eviction they believe the city has been abusing its rights to police the area and the park.

The extension, he said, "gives us the time to transform a lawsuit that was about an eviction that occurred the morning we filed the lawsuit, but now is essentially over, into one that is about the current circumstances." More

Posted on November 22nd, 2011 4:25pm

For protesters at Zuccotti Park, keeping the neighbors from screaming (for now) is a talisman against shutdown

At points during the two-hour meeting, things got heated. Multiple reports had it that the relationship was reaching the boil based on the things that were said last night.

But that obfuscates the fact that meetings like this are leading toward a ratified agreement between protesters and the community board, setting rules for the encampment.

If that goal is reached the protests are likely, if only for the time being, to be inoculated from claims coming from the city or from Brookfield that the protest must shut down to mollify residents of lower Manhattan.

With this meeting Occupy Wall Street got a step closer to that agreement. More

Posted on October 21st, 2011 6:04pm

Lawyers for Occupy Wall Street wade through 'legal morass' of First Amendment rights at Zuccotti Park

In the past, the fact that the park is privately owned but mandated to be open to the public 24 hours a day, has made it a relatively simple matter for city authorities and the private owners to treat the ongoing protest as a hot potato. The city regularly issues statements supporting the First Amendment rights of the protesters, and pointing out that any attempt to remove them from the park would be at the behest of Brookfield.

But the question whether there can be a First Amendment claim on behalf of the protesters that could keep them there despite efforts by the city or the owners of the park to remove them is a murky one, lawyers researching the case on behalf of the protesters said in interviews with Capital.

"We’re researching it as we speak," civil rights attorney Margaret Ratner Kunstler, who is working with the Guild on behalf of protesters, said. More

Posted on October 18th, 2011 11:54am

The end-game at Zuccotti Park? According to the NYPD, the landlord has to 'push the political button'

In public statements, the park's owners have gently suggested to the city that it is past time to restore the space to its normal use, and has posted signs in the park objecting to the sleeping bags, tarps, and use of benches as beds throughout the space by Occupy Wall Street protesters.

But they've stopped there, according to a representative of the New York Police Department who attended a community board meeting last night. He said that Brookfield Properties would have to formally declare the protesters trespassers. It's something the real-estate company hasn't yet done, but when and if it does, it is likely to result in the clearing of the park by police. More

Posted on October 6th, 2011 12:16pm

Owners of the park at the center of the Occupy Wall Street protests are losing patience, but what can they do?

At the moment, all sides hint that negotiations are underway over how this might be brought to a close.

“We continue to work with the City of New York to address these conditions,” said Brookfield in yesterday’s statement, “and restore the park to its intended purpose.”

But neither the mayor’s office nor the New York City Policy Department have returned Capital's requests for comment on what that process might look like. More

Posted on October 4th, 2011 12:51pm

For the anti-corporate Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, the semi-corporate status of Zuccotti Park may be a boon

"You're worried about sanitation," Michael Bloomberg said on John Gambling's radio show Friday, talking about how long the protestors who have been gathered for two weeks near Wall Street might reasonably be allowed to stay. "You're worried about lots of—there’s lots of laws on the books of what you can do in parks and that sort of thing."

But what are the rules about gathering and speaking out when a place isn't actually a park? What determines the point at which demonstrators officially wear out their welcome? More

Posted on October 2nd, 2011 8:27am

Sward into playgrounds: What all the fuss over Brooklyn Bridge Park is actually about

Earlier this month, the mayor agreed to a deal with two state legislators that is supposed to resolve one of the most contentious issues surrounding the long-awaited, painstakingly planned Brooklyn Bridge Park: The development of luxury condos inside the park, which the mayor wants in order to guarantee a source of recurring revenue to pay for the park’s maintenance in the future, and which the two lawmakers (and a vocal coalition of park activists) oppose. More

Posted on August 29th, 2011 12:24pm