City - Friday, September 5, 2008 14:09 - 1 Comment

Local Politics 101: Community Boards

Editor’s Note: Brad will be blogging weekly about local politics, especially in relation to NYU. 

“NYU professors should be teaching those kids something about civic responsibility. Why aren’t there any students fighting this with us? They’re ignorant of the realities that NYU brings upon the rest of us here. They’re too caught up in this theory or that concept and don’t even care about what’s happening to our community – no respect for the history here…”

These were the words I faced from a button-clad activist upon my first venture to  a Community Board 2 (CB2) public hearing this summer.  Each speaker – all community members – one after the other repeated the same cries against NYU’s development. 

The comments had been directed towards NYU’s development plans for the Provincetown Playhouse on MacDougal, which NYU intends to make into new Law School facilities. Though the university has promised to preserve and restore the building’s façade, as well as the walls of the structure, the community members who spoke voiced unanimous opposition to the project. Their claims were based on historic preservation and persistent opposition to NYU’s expansion throughout the Village.

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