Yesterday was May Day, the international day of leftist protest. This year, college and high school kids from around the City converged at Cooper Union. From its founding in 1859 Cooper Union had not charged students tuition; that is, until April 23rd, when the school’s Board of Trustees announced that students would have to pay because of the Union’s shrinking endowment. Otherwise, it would go bankrupt. Read more…
Students Converge At Cooper Union For May Day
May 2nd, 2013 by Paul Pastore[PHOTOS] May Day Protests Swallow Lower Manhattan
May 2nd, 2012 by Rachel Kaplan
May Day took over New York yesterday in a big way. From 8:30 am until late into the night, people took to the streets en masse. Bobst was picketed, Union Square was flooded, Tom Morello, Das Racist and Dan Deacon played a show, and huge march downtown ended in a massive general assembly held at Water Street. View images from the day after the jump, via our very own Rachel Kaplan. Read more…
NYU Kicks Off May Day With Bobst Picket Against 2031
May 1st, 2012 by Brett Chamberlin
This morning, a crowd of over 60 students, faculty, and Village residents picketed Bobst, marching around the library’s red sandstone columns in the light rain. For a little under an hour, the group expressed their opposition to NYU’s 2031 plan, which its opponents characterize as aggressive real estate expansion that threatens the historic character of the Village.
The demonstration, jointly organized by NYU4OWS and NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan, was the NYU kick off of May Day, a nation-wide general strike called by Occupy Wall Street.
“We’re just generally upset by NYU’s corporate strategy,” explained Peter Wirzbicki, an organizer with NYU’s Graduate Students Union. Wirzbicki expressed optimism that NYU would scale back their plans again (beyond the 16% cut the university announced last month). “We’re trying to publicize the faculty departments that voted against the plan,” he said.
Indeed, faculty represented the largest contingent at the picket. Christine Harrington, a politics professor, marched with a bright sign that read “Politics Department Opposes NYU 2031.” Read more…
A History Of May Day: A Lot More To It Than A Free Das Racist Concert
April 30th, 2012 by Andrew Elrod
The first of May is tomorrow. As you have probably seen hastily scrawled in the street or in the subway in “kill-the-banker” fashion, there seems to loom an ominous threat by some surreptitious minority scheduled for May Day. While this may be the case, a quick history of the holiday should illuminate exactly how May 1st is, first and foremost, a day for you, and why you should not play down your holiday, even if the graffiti that has accompanied it (and the increasingly self-alienating contingent that drew it) is just not your thing.
Dismissive assumptions of comfortable complacency is not enough for tomorrow, and here’s a history of why: Read more…
