For more than three years, Nicholas Sprayregen has kept his word to Columbia University.

The largest private landowner in the footprint of the university’s planned 17-acre West Harlem expansion, he has vowed time and again to fight the university’s attempts to oust him, so long as the school threatens the use of eminent domain.

Now, as the bulk of the area’s politicians have endorsed the expansion, community opposition has gone from a boil to a simmer and all but one other private-property owner has agreed to sell to the university, the fight’s final chapter is poised to be strictly a legal one between two parties: the university and Mr.  read more »

It seems the second blight study commissioned for Columbia University's planned West Harlem expansion did not come at extra cost to the state, as the Empire State Development Corporation's spokesman confirmed today that Columbia picked up the report's $217,000 tab.

The state's major development agency, ESDC, yesterday declared the 17-acre expansion footprint as blighted, a necessary step before using eminent domain. Prior to yesterday, it was unclear whether a blight study the state commissioned would have run into legal obstacles, as a state appellate court earlier in the week was critical of the state's use of contractor AKRF to complete the study.  read more »

The state's main development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, kicked off the public process for eminent domain for Columbia University's 17-acre West Harlem expansion today, starting a final chapter in the approvals for the contentious $7 billion initiative.

In announcing the process, ESDC President Avi Schick unveiled two unexpected nuggets of news surrounding the plan: yet another concession package from Columbia and a second blight study.

The concessions, which come on top of two multi-million dollar concession packages negotiated last year with Borough President Scott Stringer and then with the other local elected officials and members of the community, included $20 million for community development initiatives, $1 million for CUNY, a mobile dental center, and undergraduate scholarships.  read more »

The major landowner fighting Columbia University's expansion, Nick Sprayregen, today came out victorious over the state's Empire State Development Corporation today in an appellate court ruling on a case involving the Freedom of Information Law.

The case concerned the release of documents and correspondences between the state and its contractor AKRF, mostly surrounding the creation of a blight study (slated for release Thursday).

Mr. Sprayregen, represented by attorney Norman Siegel, defeated the state at the first level last year, with the court offering criticism that the same contractor, AKRF, was used for both the blight study and the environmental review.  read more »

Just when news started to slow for the summer on the development front, New York's Empire State Development Corporation dropped this bombshell in the agenda for its monthly meeting [PDF]: Columbia University "Land Use Improvement Project and Civic Project Findings."

Translation: the state will unveil the blight study, the first step in the use of eminent domain for Columbia's 17-acre West Harlem site.

The one major holdout left in the footprint is Nick Sprayregen, owner of Tuck-It-Away Self-Storage, which has numerous properties in the area. Mr. Sprayregen has bankrolled much of the opposition to the project, particularly on the legal front, and has previously vowed to challenge the use of eminent domain.  read more »

Hillary Clinton wasted no time in hitting the campaign trail as a surrogate for Barack Obama after their joint appearance earlier in the day, telling an auditorium of black teenagers that Obama sends "each and every one of you his best wishes."

Speaking Friday evening at Columbia University for the first graduation of The Eagle Academy For Young Men, a school she helped start, Clinton said, "Earlier today I had the great pleasure of being in a place called Unity, New Hampshire." She added, "We declared that we would go back together to Unity, New Hampshire to pledge our commitment, together, to change this country.  read more »

This week is graduation week here at Columbia and the campus has been hosting huge crowds of happy graduates and proud parents. I am reminded that in post-industrial New York City, education is a big business.  read more »

Students and other demonstrators who gathered in the main Quad of Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus yesterday were aware of the significance of the date they chose for their class walkout, a day after the 40th anniversary of the first in a wave of protests that rocked the campus in 1968.

Around noon, a couple of hundred students, professors and assorted other protesters gathered to hear anti-war speeches from several professors and a young Iraq war veteran. All around them, hundreds more students were sunbathing and playing frisbee on this warm April afternoon.  read more »

While New York City has terrific drinking water, many of us still buy and drink bottled water. Some resourceful types carry around reusable containers and fill them with tap water, but many of us buy new bottles water at the store, often once a day or more. My colleague Eleanor Sterling, the Director of Graduate Studies for Columbia’s Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology and the Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History, is the curator of a wonderful exhibit at the Museum called, “Water: H20 = Life." According to the bottled-water facts and figures presented in that exhibit:

Worldwide, 2.7 million tons of plastic are used each year to make water bottles, but in the U.S., less than 20 percent of these bottles are recycled.

The total estimated energy needed to make, transport, and dispose of one bottle of water is equivalent to filling the same bottle one-quarter full of oil.  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/water-bottles-water-bottles-everywhere#comments Green American Museum of Natural History Bottle Bill Columbia University Mon, 07 Apr 2008 08:04:52 -0400 Steve Cohen, Executive Director, Columbia University’s Earth Institute 67447 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/gov-patersons-main-man-former-jesuit-natural-politician-charles-obyrne

For all David Paterson's considerable charm and wit, his managerial style has been described by Democratic insiders as "jazz government." He is not into discipline. He's no good at firing people. His greatest political talent seems to be being in the right place at the right time.

But always walking one step behind Paterson now is his own éminence grise, Charles O'Byrne, an extremely intelligent, well-connected, tough and reclusive former Jesuit priest who as the governor's chief of staff will be one of the most powerful players in New York government. When the Spitzer governorship fell under the weight of the recent sensational sex scandal, Mr. O'Byrne became the gatekeeper of the new regime in Albany.  read more »

]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/gov-patersons-main-man-former-jesuit-natural-politician-charles-obyrne#comments Politics Charles O'Byrne Columbia University David Paterson Eliot Spitzer Ethan Geto Harvard Law School Howard Dean John Cardinal O'Connor John F. Kennedy Jr. Society of Jesus St. Ignatius Loyola Stephen Smith Jr. William Kennedy Smith Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:26:54 -0400 Jason Horowitz 66508 at http://www.observer.com