There is no need to fear. DNA Info’s Crime and Safety report for Morningside Heights has produced mainly positive results. In summation,

• Morningside Heights is the 38th safest neighborhood in Manhattan the city, and the 7th safest in Manhattan
• There has been a 76% drop in crime since 1993
• There was a 3% rise in major crimes from 2009 to 2010
• Morningside ranks 10th safest in the city for property crimes
• Felony assaults and rape have risen by around 30% since 2009
• There were only 2 murders in 2009 and 2010
• Robberies have dropped 11% since 2009

Catch up on the November issue of The Blue and White on Bwog until the print edition arrives.

Always an area of intense pressure and continental clashes, Morningside Heights was pretty much the same place 450 million years ago as it is today. Except instead of panic attacks in Butler and anti-protest protests on College Walk, the neighborhood disturbances tended towards the geological. Continents collided, layers of sedimentary shale burst through the surface, and an extremely tough form of bedrock known as schist abounded.

Today, a 30-foot pile of schist remains on 114th Street, sandwiched between the service entry to Havana Central to the east and the Columbia-owned brownstone Greenborough to the west. Although it’s roughly the size of a circus tent, the rock is far from a spectacle. Instead it is a surprisingly uncared-for piece of Morningside lore.

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lots of older people looking pensive. (Spectator)

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• Morningside may get a historic district, so watch out for higher real estate values and lots of older people looking pensive. (Spectator)
• Choreographer Luca (not Luka) Veggetti finds a home for his ballet Maa this season at Miller. (Capital)
• Don’t you wish your permanent shelter could look this trendy Tishrei through Elul? (Curbed)
• Gov. Paterson vetoes HIV/AIDS rent protection bill; goes home, sleeps at night (NY Daily News)
• They’re climbin’ in your escrow, they’re payin’ all your closing costs. (US Magazine)

Photo courtesy of James Thompson’s Flickr

Congratulate yourself on living in the 46th most desirable neighborhood (out of 50) in NYC. (NY Mag)

The Pulitzer Prize winners are announed

Our profs make second most $$$ (NYT)

The Knicks win penultimate game of the season

Photo via Jake Hall’s flickr

The Travel section in Today’s Times features a “local stop” in Morningside Heights purporting to give an itinerary that mirrors the weekend afternoons of real Columbia students. The only problem? When was the last time any student you know went to, for example, A Cafe or the Ding Dong Lounge? Another dubious sign: the article both begins and ends with the phrase “Ah, college.”

To be fair though, a more accurate article would probably include far more time in Butler than most tourists would be willing to endure.

The Morningside minutiae in our little Bubble Above 110th Street is what keeps us together. The tiny parts of our neighborhood that make it both boring and wonderful would seem trivial to anyone on the outside. Occasionally, we’ll be taking the time to share the minor details with you.

• The Entitled Sophomores indignantly note that the price of a Brooklyn Lager at 1020 has increased from $3 to $4, and blame it on imagined gentrification.
• Those Perpetually in Fear of Slipping need fear no more. The mats outside Butler have been upgraded to rubber ones with exquisite traction.
• The upgrades continue inside with Blue Java now filling your cup of coffee for you, while Butler Café hosts its own new vending machine.

Tipsters have noticed that local Morningside businesses have been doing their bit to help collect cash for Haiti relief efforts by replacing their own tip jars with collection buckets. Bwog understands this to be the work of the Columbia Activist Council.

AC Head Sarah Gitlin says that boxes have been placed in 90 stores in Morningside and the Upper East Side, with plans to plant 100 more. All proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders. Owners note that while donations are steady, they are mostly pennies and small change. For those too busy to cross Broadway, you can also donate by text.

UPDATE: We just received a tip that CC ’07 alum Christa Brelsford was seriously but not critically injured during the earthquake in Haiti. Brelsford, an original member of the Columbia Rock Climbing Club and an avid climber, lost part of her right leg, and a Facebook group has been created to raise funds for a prosthetic limb.

After a few days on campus, most first-years are getting sick of grassy lawns and brick buildings, not to mention Carman cinderblock.  They’re ready to venture out into the city they know is waiting for them – or at least down to 110th and Broadway.  The third installment of O-Bwog ‘09’s advice series suggests how to best enjoy those last summer days and prepare for the countless nights ahead spent wandering aimlessly and trying to find bars that don’t card.

As anyone whose relatives have read Dreams from My Father knows all too well, New York was once a very dangerous place, and Morningside Heights was just a fake neighborhood invented for Columbia students who didn’t want to admit they lived in Harlem.  Times have changed, but head to Morningside Park (116th and Morningside Drive) to remember the old days – it was in that very park where Columbia once envisioned a gym with plans so racially divisive that students took over Low Library in protest.  Thanks to them, we’re stuck with Dodge, but the Park remains unblemished, with an arboretum, waterfalls, and enough views of Harlem to make you feel vindicated.

If you’re already tired of John Jay, head to 109 Gourmet Deli (better known as Crack Del, on 109th and Amsterdam) to try their Spicy Special, a combination of Cajun turkey, jack cheese, onion, peppers, lettuce, tomato, mayo and spicy mustard. Crack Del is open late and located conveniently close to La Negrita, 1020, or other neighborhood bars – the denizens of drunk students heading back to campus sing the sandwich’s praises, left only with a fond memory and indigestion in the morning.

Still stewing over that Yale rejection?  Satisfy your taste for Gothic architecture at St. John the Divine (112th and Amsterdam), the other huge building that likes to pretend it’s in Europe.  The fourth largest church in the world, it finally reopened last fall after over 100 years of construction.  The church is also home to two peacocks that roam the grounds until winter drives them indoors – enjoy them while you can.

If you’re nursing a burgeoning hatred for the Columbia bureaucrats after sitting through (or beginning to fear the consequences for skipping) Under1Roof, damn the man and buy your books at Book Culture (off 112th and Broadway), where lower prices, packaged Core books, and shorter lines make the trek worthwhile. If Morningside proper doesn’t placate you, head to Manhattanville (above 125th St) to see billboards proving that some people hate them way more than you do.

 -ARK

Bwog could not have asked for a better point of refuge from today’s inclement winds and spitting rain than the Taste of Morningside Heights tent on Low Plaza, organized by Inside New York with help from the Center for Career Education and Bacchanal. Once inside the tent, we encountered delights far exceeding our imagination as well as the meager $5 charity entrance fee.

We started our trip through local culinary heaven with Terrace in the Sky‘s hamachi with fish eggs, followed by shot glasses of spiced green tea with cucumber and carrot. There were also Milano sandwiches, vanilla flan and, uh, free drink stirrers from Havana Central, delicious slices of baguette from Community with olive tapenade and a fennel spread, and pretzels from Silver Moon Bakery.

The crowd, which included many locals somewhat confused by the hordes of hungry undergrads, seemed to especially enjoy Mama Mexico‘s guacamole and their breaded shrimp. Campo and Cafe du Soleil offered almost identical mozzarella and tomato crostinis. The mystery wrapped inside an enigma that is Camille‘s dished out even more confusion: pasta salad, lemon squares, brown rice and brownies that had no taste. Read more…

Hark! Bwog stumbled upon something new outside of everyone’s favorite place to wait online on Sunday mornings, Community Food & Juice: a new “stroller parking” section, which can be found outside the entrance along a metal bar of scaffolding. That’s right, here in New York City’s more family-friendly crevices, we don’t have parking for cars, but toddlers. Will Community provide meters to make a little extra cash as the brunch crowd waits for its blueberry pancakes? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, be careful not to trip over the line of BabyBjorns outside next weekend on your way in.

Yesterday was a big day for Morningside Heights. Our most famous off-campus building, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, reopened fully Sunday, seven years after the massive 2001 fire that forced its partial closure.

$40 million later, the Cathedral is back in all its splendor. The rededication of drew a crowd of thousands to 112th Street and all the big-name city publications covered the story.

Bwog headed over today to see what all the fuss was about and found a rather placid St. John: the usual few tour buses were parked outside, but inside we found only a few dozen people praying or touring. Still, the Cathedral looks truly glorious, and Bwog suggests heading over ASAP. You can skip the $5 suggested donation and just marvel from the entrance.

 Photo by Liz Naiden 

The November issue of The Blue and White is on racks near you! This month, we went abroad, into Morningside, and outside of conventional history.

The only feature that combines public nudity in Japan with being a Mormon in France (plus music and food from Argentina, Russia, and Turkey).

The chain store invades Morningside Heights.

Imagine a Columbia where athletes and protestors are the same people.

Meet veterans of the Iraq War, the hunger strike, and the campaign trail. 

It may be the 25th anniversary of coeducation at Columbia, but even the university seems to have forgotten.

Street-shopping is a time-honored city tradition. There is nothing a New Yorker loves to brag about so much as their new pashmina scarf/gloves/rip-off handbag that they got “on the street for like 5 dollars!” – nothing, that is, except for scoring something cheap and vintage.

Morningside Heightsers embracing the mantra of their adoptive home can now combine their two favorite boasting claims and…buy vintage on the street! 

Laurent Ghislaine has been setting up shop on the east side of Broadway between 108th and 109th since 2005, packing her huge white van full of old fur coats, costume jewelry, hats, and cashmere sweaters. She’s been in the vintage industry for 23 years, and has a basement full of gems at home in Pennsylvania. But why choose 109th Street? Well, “kids love vintage and are always very happy to see me,” she answers, but explains that she doesn’t have a permit to sell a few blocks up, closer to campus.

You can find her at Barnard’s vintage clothing fair, or at Low’s beginning-of-year street fair, but Ghislaine wishes “they could put me up there all the time” as business on 109th is sometimes slow. So walk a block and a half past American Apparel this Wednesday or Friday and find a cardigan that every single person you know doesn’t have.

Robert McFadden, a writer for the New York Times’ CityRoom blog, waxed poetic this morning about his recent visit to Morningside Heights.  Sights include our local public library branch (conscience clearing), our fair campus (an “open fortress”), and Riverside Park (“burning yellow and russet”).  Overall, it’s really just a page-long muse, but at least it’s a good testament to Bwog’s recent autumnal melancholy.

Feeling melancholy this Sunday? Be daring and venture out of the confines of Butler into Morningside Park, the area’s oft-dismissed sanctuary of tall trees and fresh breezes.

At the bottom of the 436,232 stone steps, Bwog had to flatten itself against a wall as hordes of screaming children raced around in circles, delighted at having finally finished their midterms. They informed us that, roughly translated from the language of Childbabble, the new playground had finally opened. This required an investigation.

The new playground has a pleasing blue-and-green color scheme that blends in nicely with the surrounding park. It’s a more free-form style than some of the old themed playgrounds Bwog remembers. There’s also a definite separation from the super-little equipment for toddlers and the more challenging slides and such for the older kids. The playground was completely overwhelmed with moms on cellphones not paying attention to their kids, busy running into poles and climbing everything within reach.

Photos and more after the jump.

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