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He may have baby-sat New York as the crack epidemic left pipes and vials all over city sidewalks and the Crown Heights riots fissured West Indian-Hasidic relations in that neighborhood, but David Dinkins’ opinion still holds sway. A politician with firm roots in the Harlem political establishment, Dinkins wrote an op-ed in support of Columbia’s Manhattanville expansion in the City section of this Sunday’s Times.
“Columbia’s Manhattanville proposal takes the best of these ideas to gradually create a new kind of open, urban campus that will improve local streets; bring back commercial life to Broadway, 125th Street and 12th Avenue; and better connect the residential areas of Harlem with the waterfront park now under construction along the Hudson River.”
As the Neighborhood Retail Alliance (a.k.a momandpopnyc) points out in an item published Monday (that curiously does not mention the Dinkins op-ed), Dinkins is also on SIPA’s payroll — he teaches classes and has hosted a forum on urban policy there for the last dozen years. Meanwhile, other Harlem politicians, community groups, and Borough President Scott Stringer (who actually has some measure of oversight in this whole process) remain skeptical.
Gothamist has a handy little digest of the op-ed with some links.
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@seth Dear Bwog,
At the bottom of the Op-ed it reads “David N. Dinkins, the mayor of New York from 1990 to 1993, is a professor of public affairs at Columbia.”
@Dinkins is a Tool “improve local streets” and “better connect the residential areas of Harlem with the waterfront park ” ??!?
all for WHO? Columbia students need to wake up and realize the context of Columbia’s historical/current position of (white) priviledge.
@I'm well awake First of all: Whom. Privilege.
You’re never going to do away with legacy civil power structures – even if Manhattanville doesn’t get built. Just chill a bit and worry about your own needs, first.
@hi!!!! Alex Jung!
@crap Did your Angry Studies prof teach you to spell like that?
@the only hott jocks at Columbia are the ones who get seared with hot irons in our beloved BDSM club. I of course am using “jock” in its original, 17th-19th century context.
@haha only at cu
@red Bwog must have missed the part where the NYT notes that he works for SIPA.
@yeah everytime i walk thru that beautiful park i think to myself: “gosh, why couldnt there be a gym here??” then i look sadly at families from harlem and wish they were hottt columbia jocks in flipflops. what a world.
@hottt columbia jock the last time I walked through that park some big menacing guys gave me dirty looks and said to one another “next time these motherfuckers come around we gonna beat the shit outta them”. I love our neighbors.
@go dinkins maybe dinkins learned from the mess of the 60s…if the gym had been built in morningside heights, it not only would have improved columbia, but it also would have prevented morningside park from becoming the haven of crime, drugs and illicit activity that it was for the 70s, 80s and 90s…
@bob Dinkins works for SIPA. Ergo, he must be biased towards Columbia.
This seems very silly to me. We know that some full-time Columbia profs oppose Columbia’s polcies on various issues. And loads of Columbia students oppose the univerity’s policies on Manhattanville and other issues. So the argument just fails.
Moreover, it is not as if Dinkins will lose his livelihood if he doesn’t write Op-Eds about his part-time employer in the NYT. (He is not like a struggling adjunct who has no money and can’t find a full-time job).