The Village Has Pretty Much Always Hated Us
By Sara Trigoboff
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.
1. School of Law
The first expansion that really set the Village at odds with NYU was the Law School’s plans for a Law Center, released in 1947. Dean Arthur Vanderbilt envisioned the Law Center as “the rendezvous of legal scholars, whether they be judges, legislators, administrators, professors or students.”
The southern edge of the park had always played dowdy sister to the northern flank of Greek Revivial townhouses. Filled with brownstone apartments and shabby bars and cafes, the University thought no one would notice if they just bought up the block, but tenants got wise when their leases were not renewed at the end of the year. They formed the “Save Washington Square Committee” and held a rally at the Provincetown Playhouse. They objected to the congestion the building would add and to the eviction of the 300 people who had lived in the buildings, and argued that the construction would alter the park’s residential character.
But being that the University had already bought up the building, there wasn’t much residents could do. Their petitions to state and city officials to block the project on historical grounds fell on deaf ears. Most notably, a pair of those ears belonged to City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, who declared that the community’s protests were “irresponsible.” Residents got half-lucky when their demands picked up steam closer to the date of their eviction notice. Councilman Joseph Sharkey proposed an amendment to the City Rent Law, which came to require that educational institutions follow the same procedure as landlords in eviction proceedings. The university was made to buy up nearby buildings and resettle the tenants.
2. The Mayor’s Slum Clearance Projects
In 1953, Robert Moses announced plans for a study to determine whether a nine-block area surrounding the square (West Broadway, West Houston, Mercer and West 4th bounded) could be redeveloped as part of the Mayor’s “slum clearance projects.” NYU, deploring its lack of space and desperate for property, threw its weight behind the idea and supported the area’s redevelopment. While the proposed plans included significant residential buildings as well, residents were not informed and so NYU, the only visible stakeholder, became the subject of that nasty Village ire. Chancellor Townley Heald argued passionately for the University’s right to build spaces to suit its needs, noting the many ways that the private university served the public.
But the area wasn’t really a slum and residents took umbrage at the lowered rate the university would be paying per square foot ($5 instead of $10 for commercial developers). The plan was initially rejected by the Community Planning Board, but the Board of Estimate approved it anyway. At stake were plans to build a new library, student center and academic building on land already owned by NYU. The plan also set out to use a three-block area of the condemned ‘slum zone.’
The community filed suit in 1955, arguing that local businesses were not being fairly compensated, that the bidding process had favored NYU unjustly and that they had no legal obligation to construct on the site. Rejected by the courts, a group even testified before Congress regarding the area’s designation as a slum, but to no avail. Interestingly, NYU did not build Washington Square Village at this time. The building complex was privately built on condemned land and then the southern half was sold as the site of Silver Towers. Within the next decade, NYU would own all of the land in the Washington Square Southeast Redevelopment Area.
3. Bobst
Bobst was envisioned as the first building in an university-wide redesign by architects Philip Johnson and Richard Foster. Those crazy modernists wanted to redo the lot of the university buildings in red sandstone to match the exterior proposed for the library. This undoubtedly ugly plan naturally irked village residents. But the size of the proposed library was the biggest problem, being that it required new zoning variances and a city waiver from the university’s previous agreement to not construct new buildings along WSP higher than 60 feet. Residents got angry and started mobilizing one year after the proposal was announced, forming the “Save our Square” committee. The Board of Estimate voted for NYU and construction began in 1967.
4. Provincetown Playhouse
The preservation, in some form, of the Provincetown Playhouse on MacDougal Street is the product of the Village’s most successful push back against NYU. A fixture of Greenwich Village’s cultural life and the place where Eugene O’Neill staged his first plays, the Playhouse was put in jeopardy by the 2031 expansion. The University had owned the townhouses that surrounded the Playhouse for years. In 2008, after the community passionately protested the plans to destroy the Playhouse for Law School space, the University agreed to preserve the walls and facade. The renovated theater, which opened in 2010, has not closed the debate; local historians decry that the current Playhouse is more pastiche than preservation. It is now run by Steinhardt and used as both an event and classroom space.
5. Labor riot
This one is a bit of an old story, but I think the fact that NYU sparked New York State’s first labor riot also deserves mention. NYU was apparently born under the wrong construction star. Our first-ever building around the Square, the majestic Gothic revival University Building, was plagued by labor problems. The fledgling University’s decision to use stone quarried by Sing Sing prisoners incensed the local Stonecutter’s union. After failed appeals to state legislature, the stonecutters went to confront a local marble dealer at his store on Bond Street. A riot broke out, NYU incurred damages amounting to $2,000, and the National Guard (then stationed at WSP) was called in to break it up.
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