Columbia Students Oppose Columbia University's West Harlem-Manhattanville Construction Project-- Part 8

In October 2014, the Columbia Student Coalition Against Gentrification (CAGe) released a report, titled Understanding Columbia University's Expansion into West Harlem: An Activist's Guide, which indicated why many Columbia students, Barnard students and neighborhood residents in Morningside Heights, West Harlem and Manhattanville are apparently still opposed to the Columbia University Administration's Kravis Business School construction/campus expansion project in West Harlem/Manhattanville. As the report notes:

"(December 8, 2011) Jeff Mays of DNAinfo reports that Columbia has allocated nearly half of the $700,000 dollars actualized in the Community Benefits Agreement since 2009 to pay private consultants with close connections to New York politicians publicaly supporting the University’s expansion. In an interview with Mays, Community Board 9 member Walter South calls out Columbia’s corruption: `They’ve paid these people $300,000 dollars, and what do we have to show for it? The money should go for community improvement, not hiring the politically connected.'..... 

In response, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman conducts an investigation of the West Harlem Local Development Corporation....

 

"(March 22, 2012) 69-year old construction worker Juan Ruiz is killed while helping to demolish a century-old warehouse on Columbia’s expansion site. While clearing fragments from the building, he is fatally struck by a beam which has not been sufficiently secured. 60year old King Range, and 30-year old Sakim Kirby are buried in rubble, but extracted quickly enough to survive, although with near-crippling injuries.... 

 

"(March 24, 2012) 'Students Against Columbia University Displacement' and 'The Coalition to Preserve Community' stage a week long occupation of one of the last buildings standing on the expansion site, with the aim of condemning unsafe working conditions and the University’s negligence in fulfilling the Community Benefits Agreement. Their efforts lead to valuable dialogues between Columbia students and neighborhood tenants (dialogues without which this document would have never been written), but fail to win the serious attention of the University administration...."