NYU’s 2031 expansion plan has drawn a lot of controversy in the Village community. NYU plans to develop a total of about 2 million square feet of space within two ‘superblocks’ just south of the park, and this summer, they got permission from the city to do so. However, with 40% of university’s faculty calling those superblocks home, and 37 departments publicly opposing the plan, the resistance from within the university continues to be fierce.
But in addition to faculty and other residents, the opposition has gained a little star power. In addition to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off superstar and resident Matthew Broderick, New York One reported that “writer-performer-comedian-New-Yorker” John Leguizamo has voiced his the expansion plan. On Columbus Day, seen in a video produced by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Leguizamo calls for landmark status to be given to the southern end of Greenwich Village.
“The South Village is really important to me because as a young artist,” Leguizamo said. “This was a place that I would to because you knew that this was where it all started. I used to come and perform there and go to The Bitter End; this was the place to come and be somebody.” The Bitter End is well known to NYU students—especially freshman musicians—as the place to debut.
“Every time you lose one of these buildings, you lose a community. You lose an opportunity to pass on this knowledge and information to the future, and that means my kids and my grandkids and I would hate for them to miss this,” Leguizamo said, echoing the preservationist argument against the expansion.
While star power certainly helps send the anti-2031 message, the question for the groups now filing a lawsuit against the city for approving the NYU plan is whether or not they can raise sufficient funds.
In addition to today’s Save the Village Benefit Show, a march is planned for Saturday. October 20 at 12:30 pm. All In The Red, an activist network raising awareness about student debt, will join NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan to host the “Stop the Purple Monster” March. That day, NYU is supposedly hosting a large NYU alumni event, and the group plans to march through the construction zone to “let those alumni know what John Sexton has in store for Greenwich Village.”
For information about the anti-2031 plan, you can go to the site for the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, the site of FASP and StandUP4NYC, the Facebook page of Students and Alumni Against the Sexton Plan, as well as our own report on where the plan–and the backlash–stand now.
“In addition to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off superstar and resident Matthew Broderick, New York One reported that ‘writer-performer-comedian-New-Yorker’ John Leguizamo has voiced his the expansion plan.”
“‘The South Village is really important to me because as a young artist,’ Leguizamo said. ‘This was a place that I would to because you knew that this was where it all started.’”
You’re missing a word or two.
“For information about the anti-2031 plan, you can go to the site for the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, the site of FASP and StandUP4NYC, the Facebook page of Students and Alumni Against the Sexton Plan…”
Do you plan on suggesting where people might find less biased sources of information, or have you relied solely on anti-NYU 2031 interest groups in writing this piece?
Thank you so much for your comment. I will try to make those edits as soon as possible.
This article is meant to inform readers about the anti-NYU 2031 interest groups and the most recent steps they are taking to counter-act the plan. We have run other pieces that are “less biased” on this topic. There are other groups in support of 2031, and you can find them on Google.
Britton – Go to NYU’s website and you would think the entire NYU community and surrounding eneighborhood is for this plan. In fact, most of the faculty and almost the entire neighborhood is against this plan.
When NYU start paying significantly more for our already high tuition rates with little financial aid, you will start seeing push back. Much more if/when the student debt crisis hits and nobody can obtain loans for a school that already costs $200K plus to graduate from…..
NYU Students are constantly being bullied, marginalized, and demonized by so many of the citizens of Greenwich Village, it is absurd. WE LIVE HERE TOO. WE PAY HIGH RENTS JUST AS MUCH AS YOU DO, and frankly, we help the local community thrive much more so than most of these “native residents” (read, New Jersey and Philly suburban transplants). We aren’t here to terrorize the neighborhood or see it lose its character, for that is one of the reasons we were attracted to this university. We are simply trying to get a top-quality education, why is it that the greedy, self-righteous residents have so much anger built up against that? When you see all the shops lining the streets of the village, so many of those are put in place because of the NYU students and would be out of business if it wasn’t for our constant and high volume patronage. I am all for the expansion–if it grants more people with an opportunity to receive a top knotch education, then call me an evil person, but I am all for that. Honestly, get over yourselves. Greenwich Village isn’t the same place it was in the 1960′s, grow up and learn to adapt with the changing times, as you are in a city that is in constant flux and it will undoubtedly not slow down in order for you to keep some sense of nostalgia.
Hate to break it to you Abe but your “top- notch” education will go down the crapper along with NYU’s credibility if/when this ill planned and financially risky plan goes forward.
Greedy? 2031 is a land grab. Plain and simple. NYU treats its students like consumers. That’s the epitome of greed to me.