At 5:30 pm on Tuesday, November 26, community organizations Defend Harlem and New York Interfaith Commission gathered on 116th and Morningside to rally against Columbia’s land expansions.

On Tuesday, November 26, at 5:30 pm, Defend Harlem and the New York Interfaith Commission held a small rally at 116th and Morningside, supported by Columbia organizations Housing Equity Project, Columbia Sunrise Movement, and Columbia-Barnard Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA). Students and community members protested against the University’s land expansion and displacement of Harlem’s Black and Latin community members. 

Around twenty people formed a semi-circle on the corner of the street holding signs with statements such as “Columbia Is A School, Not A Landlord!” and “2000 Families Priced Out 2010-2014.” The rally began with the chant, “When Harlem is Under Attack, What do we do? Stand up, fight back!” As soon as the chants began, police set up barriers on their left. 

Protestors holding up their Defend Harlem signs.

At 5:42 pm, a representative from the NY Interfaith Commission started speaking. A woman in the crowd interrupted and briefly spoke about how Columbia’s campus has historically been open to the public. Since April, campus has been intermittently closed to community members, unless they fill out a guest registration request in advance.

The first speaker listed out their demands: 

1. Stop displacement from the Manhattanville Project.
2. Return the 125th Waterfront and 12th Ave area to the uptown community.
3. Return Fairway property to the uptown community for economic development and affordable housing.
4. Make the University real estate portfolio and property acquisition public.
5. Pay out the 2009 Community Benefits Agreement.
6. Appoint an uptown community member to the Columbia University Board to replace the late Reverend Dr. M Moran Weston, who was the only member of the board who was also a local to the community.

After the first speaker finished, there were chants such as “Columbia, Columbia, open your eyes, Harlem is not yours to buy” and “Columbia, have you no shame, no more use of eminent domain.” A second speaker from Columbia Sunrise Movement, an environmental justice group, went to the front. The speaker addressed Columbia’s lack of transparency with their funding and pointed out the “43 million dollars the school has received over the past few decades from fossil fuel companies.” Sunrise demanded that the University “be transparent about its funding, about its money, and then receive funding from organizations that have all the communities in mind and not just Columbia’s corporate ideas.” 

A third speaker, Stan McSweeney from the Morningside Heights Community Coalition Just Housing Committee, came forward. The speaker addressed the importance of “putting forth the perspective and needs and desires of all neighbors.” He detailed a history of the Manhattanville Columbia campus and its development over the years. He spoke about the interdependence of Columbia and the neighborhood it’s in, and how that relationship needs to be an equal one, in the interest of a sustainable neighborhood. In particular, he stated, “We will not be subject to you, we are equals in creating a greater whole.” His speech prompted more chants from protesters, including “1 2 3 4 gentrification no more” and “5 6 7 8 open up the campus gates.”

The final planned speech, by two students from the Columbia section of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, started off by outlining that Columbia University does not pay property taxes as a private educational institution. Their primary point was about a proposed repair bill that would take 179 million dollars in property taxes from Columbia, and 130 million from NYU, to be reinvested back into the CUNY system. The goal would be to have equitable access to higher education for all New Yorkers, regardless of their income level. They passed around a QR code linking to the citywide petition in support for the repair bill.

The protest formally ended with an announcement from a local Barnard and Columbia alumnus who is currently living across the street from the president’s house. She identified herself as a lawyer currently working to put together a case on behalf of several others in the neighborhood, intending to sue Columbia on the grounds that College Walk is actually a public street and therefore cannot be closed to the neighborhood. 

Throughout the protest speeches, there were several references to the protests that sparked in the Morningside community after the announcement of the 1960 plan to build a Morningside Park Gymnasium. The Gymnasium was designed to be built on two acres of public land in Morningside Park, but with limited public access, making it a private gym exclusively for the use of Columbia College students on public land. Protests sparked immediately after construction began, and the gymnasium was never built. The protestors against Columbia’s current expansion draw inspiration from these former successful protests. 

The final speech of the protest ended at about 6:07p.m. After the end of the planned protest, the circle of protestors broke to mingle and exchange contact information and pass around QR codes.

Photos via Bwog Staff