So yesterday the Empire State Development Corp. voted to approve Columbia’s $6.28 billion expansion expansion into Manhattanville.  In doing so, the state designated the area as blighted, which is necessary in order to invoke eminent domain.  The decision came as a result of a blight study by AKRF Inc., which found that Manhattanville consisted of […]

Turns out we’re not the only Manhattan university looking to expand.  According to Washington Square News, NYU has proposed adding 6 million square feet to its campus, and is looking outside the Village for about half of that space.  The current candidate neighborhoods are Midtown, Northwestern Brooklyn, and, most intriguingly, Governor’s Island, the perpetually-redesigned, super-historical […]

Manhattan poll takes calculated, er, “responsible” stance on expansion: city’s “success…difficult to absorb”. There’s always Bounty. Mudd to get greener (does that mean less muddy, or more?) Police rubber-stamp 11-block strike walk… …but in opinion, we find self-conscious Iraq caution, and the same message with a lot more braggadoccio…plus, to top it all off, love is […]

On Thursday, Harvard released its 50-year plan for expansion in the Allston neighbourhood (think Manhattanville, except 341 acres instead of 17, Boston instead of New York, and more parking lots than people). It’s long, like 72 pages (even Penn kept theirs to 32!), and Bwog didn’t read the whole thing, but if we were Harvard […]

Columbia alums congegate from Switzerland to Suffolk County… …to relive their youthful protests against Alma Mater’s expansion Meanwhile, the administration creates an office to actually help students, then hides it away deep in the bowels of Dr. No’s waterborne fortress and swears its employees to a code of Masonic-like secrecy Andrew Martin boasts indie credentials, “bathe[s] in […]

Spec reported last fall that the Cathedral of St. John the Divine would let Columbia and AvalonBay Communities build on the Close (the parcel of land bordered by Morningside, Amsterdam, 110th, and 113th) in exchange for rental income. Today, the New York Times reports that AvalonBay will build a 20-story, 300-unit apartment building on the […]

Wouldn’t these midterms be bearable if the weather were at least half-way pleasant? Maybe. And where is the weather pleasant? South America. And what South American nation does Columbia have a kinship with? Colombia. That’s why we should move there. And that’s exactly what Anand Venkatesan pondered in this December 2002 Blue and White article: […]

One Bwogger weighs in on Columbia’s possible downtown expansion… Is Columbia aware that it has the opportunity to purchase a piece of (cinematic) history in the 99th Street Metro Theater?