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Will the NYPD Be Enough to Keep NYU Safe?

2008_11_nyu.jpgNYU kids now have a new sticking point to convince their parents to fork over money for a deposit so they can move to Williamsburg. In a move that school officials say will divert $25 million into academic programs, NYU is scaling back on security around the downtown university. Today's Post reports that gone are overnight guards for two administration buildings--two of school's six "green buildings," spots that were kept open all night as safe havens for any students who felt threatened. One student points out, "This area around Washington Square Park has a lot of shady characters." The move to slash the security budget comes just after a new study named NYU the third highest-priced university in the nation at just over $50,000 in total yearly costs.

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  • Cord

    "#21 You pay $50,000 a year tuition but you are too poor to take the subway? Stop the B.S. If you're that poor, walk. "



    A lot of NYU students are loans and among the top Universities NYU has the highest amount of students that are pell grant eligible. Although the appearance of NYU may give the impression that it is all spoiled kids many of them come from humble backgrounds and took a chance at the opportunity to attend a pretty good school in downtown Manhattan.

  • TN

    Please. You want to see shady characters, turn back the clock to 1988 in WSP.



    I think the economy will turn back the clock soon enough.

  • west side Michael

    Of course NYU is for out of town students

    we real New Yorkers go to Duke.

  • The Edge

    #37- Sure. But it was funny.

  • pierrevonbaron

    disgusting and pathetic, nannystate

  • NannyState

    Or do what any self-obsessed NYU student does when confronted with inconvenient truths: take a fall from an upper balcony in the Bobst Library.

  • Gentrifier

    There's a reason those obnoxious, space-invading skells are in the park.



    It's that guy sitting next to you in Psych 101, it's that guy down the hall who tells corny jokes. More accurately, it is their appetites for controlled substances. Those appetites create a market for drugs, which draws supplies. The suppliers tend not to be clean-cut corporate types. But you knew that already.



    If you don't want the shady characters around, you and your fellow students should narc on EVERY occasion possible. Every time you hear even the vaguest rumor that a student is doing drugs, call the police.



    If you shut down the market in drugs, if NYU students feel too intimidated to score in the park, the scumbags will disappear, because it won't be worth it for them.



    (Before you start screaming at me, please be aware that my suggestion is entirely tongue-in-cheek.)

  • Snoopy

    NYU's baseball team isn't that good. Nor their football team. I don't see them playing in any bowl game in the near future.

  • LoisA

    OMG You should see what NYU students have done to

    Stuyvesant Town! Stuy Town residents need protection from them!

  • Kojak

    STFU rasputin. I was obviously making some stereotypical generalizations. Them being outsiders is not the issue, though it does contribute to their naivete so to speak.

  • rasputinsghost



    I'm a native New Yorker and an NYU student and to the person who complains about them not 'being from here', what the fuck kind of New Yorker are you? Take your insular bullshit to another place, you're the type that makes us look bad.

  • pierrevonbaron

    haha, fair enough.....i lived in the village for two years so i'd say i've walked around there my fair share.



    nyu students don't seem any better/worse to me than most college kids, there's just a ton of them in a small area...and yes, it is an expensive school so a higher percentage come from wealth. then again, a higher percentage of them were adventurous enough to come to nyc as 18-year-olds (i went to a small college town)....so, going back to the point of the post, i do not think we can say that nyu students as a whole a) suck or b) are wimps.

  • Kojak

    "2) think you're more poor than NYU students (and more righteous for it)

    3) think you're smarter than NYU students

    4) think you're better than everyone, period

    5) think you "know" new york better than NYU students and it belongs to you more than them"



    All of this goes without saying as this is the typical New Yorker attitude.

  • thefacts

    #21 You pay $50,000 a year tuition but you are too poor to take the subway? Stop the B.S. If you're that poor, walk.



    #26 Obviously you don't walk around Greenwich Village much, do you?

  • Kojak

    For me, NYU is too big. Its like the University is swallowing the city whole. Many of its students are not from here and are somewhat naive and ignorant. Some are also overly sheltered by their helicopter parents. Most go for the location and not so much for the educational quality, which there is a lack there of. (Depending on your Major of course)



    Honestly, this is what set me off:



    http://gothamist.com/2006/10/16/nyu_dorm_as_hug.php

  • pierrevonbaron

    just trying to get at what's causing all this disdain for a group of people....seems like there's different strands for different people (repeated themes i've noticed on many gothamist message boards):



    1) think you're cooler than NYU students

    2) think you're more poor than NYU students (and more righteous for it)

    3) think you're smarter than NYU students

    4) think you're better than everyone, period

    5) think you "know" new york better than NYU students and it belongs to you more than them

    6) you have no idea why but are annoyed with people all the time



    i'm not unfamiliar with the feelings of vague annoyance, but mostly for me it's reserved for people who say things like all stroller moms in Park Slope are terrible, all hipsters in Williamsburg are terrible, all NYU students are twerps....

  • The Edge

    #19- There's still the pimp that walks up and down Bowery every couple of days or so.



    Plus all the bums outside the mission.

  • JP Lynch

    I think the bitterness stems from the majority of these students being elitist, whiny babies that can't handle living in a city with all that entails, meaning shady characters.



    That and the fact that a once beautiful and diverse part of Manhattan has become the NYU campus.

  • iloveanderson

    many of you seem bitter.....perhaps you got rejected from NYU??? couldn't get enough financial aid? or you just hate 18-22 year old students?



    oh please. as a student who attends one of the other fantastic schools in the city, i can honestly say that 90% of the kids i've met from NYU are spoiled, pretentious morons. ever been in a conversation with one of them (particularly the williamsburg dwellers)? doesn't really go far beyond how "totally rad" jack kerouac is or how they "scored" from their friend who works at AA. try talking to a kid from baruch or hunter (or eugene lang or even pace!) and have your faith restored in the students of the city.

  • matukonyc
    many of you seem bitter.....perhaps you got rejected from NYU??? couldn't get enough financial aid? or you just hate 18-22 year old students?


    I wouldn't have wasted the $50 application fee on applying to a crappy school like NYU.

  • hungryghoast

    i'm hoping that "shady characters" comment was sarcastic... cuz otherwise, that's pretty goddamn pathetic



    thefacts... why so bitter about the buses? there really aren't that many of them and onceuponatime when i was a student there trying pretty hard to save $ every way possible they saved me a lot of needed transit $.



    and yeh, I went to NYU and yeh, I'm willing to admit that most of the students are, indeed, fucking brats.

  • Dirk

    many of you seem bitter.....perhaps you got rejected from NYU??? couldn't get enough financial aid? or you just hate 18-22 year old students?



    Yeah, that's it. We're all jealous....

  • breaknight

    "This area around Washington Square Park has a lot of shady characters."



    Wow really? Not even the Bowery has seedy characters anymore...

  • Wza

    Kojak and Rocknrope said it best.

  • pierrevonbaron

    many of you seem bitter.....perhaps you got rejected from NYU??? couldn't get enough financial aid? or you just hate 18-22 year old students?

  • JacqueMehoff

    I thought the park is still under renovation? if there's anything I hate more than NYPD are campus cops. don't tase me bro.

  • blablanyc

    Oh please. Every week we hear of another NYU student dealing illegal drugs from their dorm room. NYers need more NYPD to save us from these NYU brats.



    Who is the reckless NYU bus driver I always see ripping down Bleecker Street?

  • whitecastlerock

    Oh yawn. This is an overcrowded city. If mommy and daddy want to spend that much on your tuition, they should send you to a safer school.

  • Mr Mel

    What do those night time security guards do anyway, besides sleep?

  • MFer

    Really! The shady characters in the park are the good people. And well now there is a Dunkin Donuts just a block away on W 3. We are all safe.



    Now if only this policy will stop the hacky-sackifaction of the park.

  • neckbeard

    agreed 100% and i'm relatively new to nyc (came here in 2005, never really saw the bad ny).



    if you can't handle some shady characters, don't move to new york city. i think its pretty simple.

  • thefacts

    NYU and its students are part of the problem not part of the solution.



    E.g., NYU pollutes and congests downtown's polluted and congested streets with private fleet of busses for the poor babies who get all upset if they have to ride a subway with the plebes.

  • ironybubble

    there is a new tax on the table for this analog 911.

  • JacqueMehoff

    I surprised many people don't carry a whistle, is there a law against that, too?

    whistles were like the cheapest prize you get at an arcade. unless you got the steel police one.

  • Snoopy

    If the NYPD would do it's job perhaps Washington Square Park wouldn't be quite as seedy. Put a Dunkin' D every twenty feet in the park and you will see a greater police presence.

  • lushintransit

    @papercutnija Let's hope that NYU students are harmed?

  • Rocknrope

    This area around Washington Square Park has a lot of shady characters."



    Please. You want to see shady characters, turn back the clock to 1988 in WSP.

  • Dirk

    Shady characters around Washington Square Park!? Oh no!

  • Kojak

    "This area around Washington Square Park has a lot of shady characters."



    So does 95% of the city of New York....



    If you truly want to emerse yourself in the life of this city, why do it under a bubble? Grow some balls you NYU twerps.

  • Papercutninja

    The answer the your headline? Let's hope not.

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