The Northwest Corner Building is officially a thing! Rumor has it, the fancy uber high-tech new café opening Monday will serve Joe Coffee and use iPad cash registers. Oh yeah and yesterday it hosted Bloomberg. Alex Jones was there!

In response to a reporter's question about teachers' pensions Bloomberg shouted, "J-E-T-S Jets, Jets, Jets!"

Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited the “Northwest Corner interdisciplinary research building” yesterday morning to announce a new environmental building initiative, the NYC Urban Technology Innovation Center.  The center will connect the academic collaboration of (among others) Columbia, CUNY and NYU, and companies offering new greener technologies, with interested building owners. IBM Research is also a partner in the project, contributing its mad skills in “cloud computing, real-time analytics, and supercomputing.” (!!)

Data about the effectiveness of the technology will be centralized and available to all paying members of the center, which will be located at Columbia. The hope is that companies will be attracted to the innovation-friendly environment and move their operations from California to New York.  Bloomberg envisions this new support for emerging technology as an important part of his effort to diversify and reinvigorate New York City’s economy in the lasting wake of the financial bust.

“But what does that mean for us students?” you may innocently ask.  The answer: not much, unless you are a SEAS freshperson.  There are some, as of yet unspecified, plans to integrate Gateway with the new center, but Dean Peña-Mora did not elaborate on that point.  So for the CC-going folk, just rest assured that Columbia is a part of some fancy IT stuff that might save the planet.  Although, Bwog could go for some global warming right about now…