The New York Times is collaborating with not us NYU Journalism School on a new news platform, covering the East Village. (Yahoo)

In a bizarre twist to the recruitment video phenomenon, Tufts now offers the option to applicants to submit videos to YouTube as part of their application. (NYT)

A Columbia student on Survivor! (CBS)

The ever-popular History of the City of New York class’s midnight bike ride could be threatened by new biking legislation. (Spec)

PrezBo knows about free speech. (Chronicle)

It’s been in the top stories box for weeks now, but the score is 45% to 55%, and the golden hour is now upon us. It’s true; Our Big Purple Neighbor is currently winning NBC’s Best University in NYC poll, and if we don’t fight back now NYU will take both the bragging rights and the beer-bellied “local” dressed in gold as trophies.




In light of what’s at stake, Bwog implores you to vote (now!) for Columbia if you haven’t already. Even if you have, Bwog’s Online Poll Cheating experts say you may be able to vote twice or more if your IP address changes depending on where you hook up to the internet on or around campus. You may also be able to vote twice if your great great aunt was from Chicago. So go on, vote!

Polls close at 2pm today.

The baby blue of Columbia versus the flamboyant purple of NYU. Or, if you’re NBC New York, the forest green of Columbia vs. the baby blue of NYU.  Color issues aside, the station is hosting a collegiate version of its “Golden Local” series. The results of the poll decide which school will theoretically receive the honor of “the world’s first human trophy” (NBC’s version of a local, as seen above wearing a golden blazer and matching golden Converse sneakers).

Columbia is currently in the lead, but there’s no time to waste, folks. Past polls have dethroned such institutions as Grey’s Papaya (loser in the “best hot dogs” category) and McSorely’s (“best old bars”), so the inherent obviousness of the decision may not survive the internet.  Get voting, make sure to find the “Skip this ad” button in the upper left corner afterward, and bring some of that local, authentic, ski-hat-with-aviators flavor up to Morningside. He’s sure to be the hottest thing on campus since Sir Michael’s mixtapes.

Columbia may have been upstaged last month in the building takeover category by our violet-loving friends to the south. However, we can all rest assured that nostalgia for the halcyon days of Morningside Heights in 1968 will never be crushed by pesky NYU Public Safety officers.

On that note, today Gothamist posted an interview with Mark Rudd, former member of occasional bombmakers Weatherman and, more relevantly, president of the Columbia chapter of SDS. Rudd was expelled from Columbia in 1968 and then joined the Weathermen, aka the Weather Underground, and helped to plan a bombing in the early 70′s of Butler Library, a horror unimaginable to those holed up in 209 at this very moment. Rudd and his fellow Weathermen eventually landed themselves on the F.B.I’s top 10 most wanted list. 

Rudd is currently living in New Mexico and is about to release a book about his experiences as a Weatherman and campus activist in the 1960′s and 70′s. It’s creatively titled Underground, and retails for the quite capitalist price of $25.99. The Gothamist interview touches on his childhood and upbringing in the suburbs of New York, the Ayers/Obama controversy, and his thoughts about the progression of New York City throughout the last few decades. He describes his book as a “story of good organizing (Columbia) followed by bad (Weathermen).” (Photo via gothamist.com)

- ECS

-Photo via NYULocal

Ah, to think it was only a few days ago that TBNYU‘s tame “Study Breakdown” turned into a full-out riot(ous dance party in a cafeteria). Hey, we know about that student mutiny stuff around here, right? You can relive the 36 hours that changed everything, all liveblogged (except when the guy writing it all down went to sleep) by the dedicated team at NYULocal.

The whole shabang was over by lunch on Friday, when everyone involved (except four revolutionary stragglers) had left Kimmel’s 3rd floor, presumably for a Marlboro Light break. In the days since the quasi-revolution, no arrests have been made, some TBNYU-ers lost their housing, and everyone got made fun of a lot.

And just when you thought it was done: there’s a rally outside Kimmel today at noon for all those who feel inclined to support TBNYU members as they face possible disciplinary action at the hands of the Man. Also, they probably want their dorms back. Now that’s something worth protesting.

- ECS

- W.M. Akers

According to NYULocal: “The third floor of Kimmel has been cleared and no arrests made. None of the 13 demands of TBNYU! have been met and there were never any extensive meetings with the administration about meeting them.” Earlier today, our old NYU correspondent W.M. Akers, now with the Washington Square News, filed a dispatch from outside the Kimmel Center.

Like democracy itself, last night’s carnival outside of the occupied Kimmel center was little but an anticlimax. All day, 1 a.m. had been the unbreakable deadline, the moment when negotiations would go through or the brave little protestors would be dragged out by the black clad riot gurus of the NYPD. At midnight the protestors  held a rally, drawing a few hundred sympathetic students, a quartet of surly ninja-looking anarchists, a marching band, and a couple dozen embittered conservatives. Some of the students in front of Kimmel had come in support, but most were just there to see something happen. Their voices hoarse after twenty-eight hours’ bloviation, the occupiers led the crowd in chants, while the rest of us waited for a massacre.

The little siege had already had drama, but the swarms of police — who gradually replaced all the NYU guards — were, from outside our bubble, a nod from the administration saying, “Yes. Somebody you know did something worth taking notice of.” Nobody actually wanted anyone to get hurt, but, with the same evil thrill that one feels whenever breaking news bulletins appear on CNN, the students looked hopefully for riot police. Read more…

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 Photo Courtesy of NYU Local

The Columbia Students for a Democratic Society, who used to know a thing or two about campus protest, just sent out a press release from Take Back NYU, the pro-Gaza-ish, Marxist-y group that took over Kimmel Hall last night.

Their first demand? They request, “full legal and disciplinary amnesty for all parties involved in the occupation.” Style tip for radical, leftist protests: Don’t mention yourself until the end.

According to the New York Times and NYU Local, the protest started with around 70 students and has dwindled to less than fifty. The Times posited that only half the students are native NYUers and many New School students, apparently addicted to building occupation, are among the crowd. Full press release after the jump.

-DJB

Read more…

Photo courtesy of NYU Local

Radical student group Take Back NYU (TCBY, no wait, TBNYU) has barricaded itself inside a dining hall at Kimmel Center, NYU’s non-diagonal equivalent of Lerner.

TBNYU had publicly planned to boogie tonight at their second annual “Study Breakdown,” but plans quickly went 1968 earlier this evening when several dozen students began barricading doors, hanging slogan-bearing signs in windows, and announcing their agenda via loudspeakers.

Among the group’s demands are more affordable tuition, public accounting of all university expenditures, more financial aid, and, in particular, financial aid for 13 Palestinian students. Signs at the center show the group has an international flair, as well, sporting slogans like, “Solidarity With Gaza.” (No explanation as to how the situation in Palestine relates to pricey East Village studio apartments, but maybe it’s an “everyone who wants to protest, do it here”-type of thing.)

NYU Local has been liveblogging the goings-on since around 9 and in the last hour has reported “Tons of cops outside!” Take Back NYU also has a live stream broadcasting on the Web.

UPDATE (12:17 a.m.): Our NYU correspondents tell Bwog that students outside the center are “happy and cheering.” Meanwhile on the streaming video, a TBNYU member describes their group: “It is a Marxist communist organization, but there’s no kind of – no, like, we don’t screen our members. There’s a little Trotsky in there. Maybe. We’re, like, a strong-minded group. But, yeah, no, absolutely. We’re democratic.”

UPDATE (1:02 a.m.): Bwog has been told that there is one Barnard student there and “a lot of Columbia students came here but either left for int’l student visa fears or couldn’t get in because they stopped letting people in at some point.” There will be a “support rally” in front of Kimmel tommorow at 12:15 p.m. for any students who feel strongly enough to make the “trek.”