The Village Has Pretty Much Always Hated Us

Land use. It’s spicy, it’s sexy, and it’s been a point of contention between NYU and Village residents for the past 60 years. We joke now that Washington Square Park is basically our campus, but the land grabs and subsequent periods of construction that have led to NYU owning most of the land around the park did not come to pass without significant community backlash.

Today’s anti-2031 protests are nothing new. Generations of Village residents have fought for the version of the Village that preceded their present moment. They are not the first residents to be bummed out at how the Square has changed.

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NYU Herstory: How We Became Co-ed (Part I)

The history of women at NYU and the University’s transformation to a fully co-educational institution has been prolonged and arduous. While most of us now think of NYU as a place dominated by women, (60% to 40%) to date, a woman still has not served as chancellor and women were not fully incorporated until 1959. The undergraduate division was the most resilient to full coeducation and was the last school at NYU to become fully co-ed. In this new series, we will recount NYU’s process of becoming coeducational, highlighting along the way some women (and men) who’ve been instrumental in the process.

The university’s 5th chancellor, Dr. Howard Crosby presided over the term that produced the most startling changes. In 1873, he tacitly allowed women to enroll in the School of Art, though the classes were merely instructional. His support of mixed sex education was not unilaterally popular on campus.

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New York City’s Stadium Graveyard

With the new Brooklyn Nets set to inaugurate the Barclays Center in a game vs. the Knicks this Nov. 1, and the recent destruction of Yankee Stadium and Shea on our minds, we thought it would be the perfect time for a visit to New York’s stadium graveyard. Few structures are more reflective of the city’s tendency to build, raze, forget and rebuild.

Ebbets Field

I don’t know that Brooklyn has ever fully recovered from losing the Dodgers in 1957. Walter O’Malley, the then-owner of the Dodgers and the recalcitrant Robert Moses were unable to agree upon a new stadium location. And so the Dodgers moved to L.A for the 1958 season, leaving Brooklyn without a professional sports team until the new Nets. The Mets came out of this fracture, and the new Citi Field fittingly pays homage to Ebbets Field. Of all the destroyed stadiums, Ebbets Field surely looms largest in the public imagination. Immortalized by Pete Hamill and Roger Kahn in The Boys of Summer, Ebbets Field has come to represent the golden era of working-class Brooklyn, and the halycon days before riots and gentrification in which “everyone was joined in the rough democracy of the upper deck” rooting for “‘dem bums.” Most ironically, the team once named for its trolley “dodging,” public transportation taking fans now plays in the city of the car.  The stadium was destroyed in 1960 and replaced by an apartment complex.

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Having Fun Isn’t Hard When You’ve Got A Library Card

Not the biggest fan of Bobst’s “beautiful suicide prevention sheets”?  Or maybe you just don’t want run into everyone you know and/or are trying to quit chain smoking.  Or, like me you dreamed of tweed and leather chairs and cozy collegiate times when you were college touring.  Library porn?

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Nearby Vacations Spots To Check Out Before Summer Officially Ends

Well, yesterday was certainly a rough welcome home. Missing summer pretty badly?  Don’t have a friend with a car or a sweet beach house? No worries, here are some cheap(ish) and easy places you don’t need a car to get to. Get there before the leaves start to fall for some end to summer debauchery. Whether you want to flesh out the gambler in your creative writing project, take sweet pictures at a crumbling castle or just lie out on the beach, we’ve got you covered. Remember, as the boss of summer, John Mellencamp, said, “It can’t last forever.”

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Meet Other (Animated) NYU Students On Shaker

Ever want to meet people on NYU campus while technically not on NYU campus? If you haven’t seen their staff outside Stern yet, you can thank Shaker for their new Facebook app, which was recently launched exclusively to the NYU community. Try it and meet random strangers in Washington Square Park, but with one catch: they’re animated.

Yep, sign up for the Shaker app and immediately find yourself — or a walking, faceless avatar of yourself — in a cartoon version of NYU campus. For now, that means an animated WSP, complete with the fountain, arch, benches, and of course, other NYU students also on the app. Think of it as J-Sex’s expansion into The Sims.

As Shaker’s explanatory/biography video explains, the app is meant to “bring Facebook to life.” Indeed, each other user on the Shaker NYU campus is color coded by their relationship to you: people that you’re already Facebook friends with are blue, people you have mutual friends with are in yellow, and people you don’t know (yet!) are gray.

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NYU Students Rally Against Fracking Tomorrow

If you overhear somebody rapping about water in Washington Square tomorrow, you’re not going crazy — you might have just passed through the Students Against Fracking Coalition rally. From 12:30 – 2 p.m., students from NYU, the New School and Hunter College are taking over the Park to invite New Yorkers to “jump on the ban wagon” and demonstrate their support for a state-wide ban on fracking. Also in attendance will be Rev. Billy Talen and his insane Earthaluja Choir, former DEP commissioner Al Appleton, and other local environmental advocacy groups.

As Caitlin has been reporting recently, hydro-fracking is a controversial practice of drilling for natural gas that has become a pressing issue in New York, especially as the Senate and local officials are reconsidering its environmental and public health risks. As a result, this semester the Students Against Fracking Coalition has been active around campus this semester, even regularly screening the film Gasland (available on Netflix), which examines the practice and effect of fracking on various communities.

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NYU Study: Barely Any New Yorkers Bike To Work

Remember all of those controversial stories about bike lanes in recent months? There was the one with the potential bill requiring bicycle licenses, and the one where Rep. Anthony Weiner threatened to “tear out” bike lanes altogether, among several others.

Well, according to NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, all that debate might be for naught. NYU researchers analyzed U.S. Census results to show that only 0.6% of New Yorkers (22,686) used bikes to commute to work in 2009, lower than most other major cities (Los Angeles even topped out at over 1%). The study also found an impressive 57% of New Yorkers take mass transit to work, while 10% walk and about 30% drive.

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NYC Tip: The Best Of The City’s Farmer’s Markets

Face it, the school year is practically over. And what better way to celebrate than by greeting springtime at the Farmer’s Market? Here’s a guide to the best vendors and items at markets near campus. If you can’t stand the crowd at Union Square market, try going on a Monday or Friday, or check out some of these cozier downtown markets. Don’t forget cash (although some markets, like the one in Union Square, have stands where you can use your credit cards to get tokens) and your own shopping bag!

Union Square Farmer’s Market (Open: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday all year round from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m.)

Ronnybrook Dairy (Wed., Sat.):  You may already be familiar with their bottled chocolate milk from stores in the area, but their cheese is hard to find. If you’re into the type of cheese where you can taste the grass, go for the Camembert.

D&J organic (Fri.): The most amazing homemade tofu you’ll ever have. It tastes just like fresh mozzarella.

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New Yorkers Support Bike Lanes, Poll Finds

In this chapter of New York City bike lane wars, a recent study found that a majority of New Yorkers actually support bike lanes, or according the poll question, they approve of them “because it’s greener and healthier for people to ride their bicycle.”  The Quinnipiac University study released last week also found that 39% of New Yorkers were against bike lanes “because it leaves less room for cars which increases traffic.” 6% of respondents either did not answer or had no opinion.

Although cycling advocates probably peed their pants at those numbers, the results should be taken with a grain of salt since the poll question was a bit too narrow.  Still, New York’s future as a bike haven seems assured as voters between 18 and 49 years old were the strongest supporters of the lanes.

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