Results tagged “campus”

There was much rancor recently when Pratt announced it would restrict its campus to students and faculty. The university has long described the grounds as an "urban oasis" for the community, so locals are surprised about the sudden change. Some speculated that Pratt couldn't legally restrict access, because city streets were absorbed by the campus in the '50s. Well, The Local did some digging and learns that there is in fact no such requirement. Pratt can and will exclude you.

An audit by the State Comptroller's Office has found that five CUNY colleges failed to report 73 percent of the felonies that occurred on their campuses, as required by law. The most ironic offender? John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which failed to report 19 of its 20 felonies.

For at least a decade, Pratt's made a big deal about how its 25-acre grassy campus doubles as a much-needed public oasis for the Clinton Hill community. But the gates to Eden are closing. In June the campus was shut to the public to accommodate a major "beautification" construction project, and when it reopens again in a month only authorized visitors and those with Pratt ID cards will be welcome. Well, outsiders will be allowed to cut through the campus to get from DeKalb to Willoughby, but they're no longer invited to linger. Some wonder whether the change is in response to a perceived crime spike in the neighborhood; last month a Pratt architecture student wound up in a coma after a violent mugging near campus. Whatever the motivation, neighbors are already up in arms, and there's even talk of a petition! But one Pratt student, commenting on The Local, wants the neighbors to know they're not alone—"there are a lot of rules for Pratt students on campus, too. For example, we’re no longer allowed to skateboard." Which reminds us; student sit-in season is almost upon us!

The Harvard senior who was barred from graduating next month and banned from campus—due to an alleged connection with the fatal shooting of a drug dealer at the school— has spoken out. According to the Post, sources say Chanequa Campbell helped swipe murder victim Justin Cosby into the dorm to sell drugs, but Campbell denies knowing him. She admits to knowing suspect shooter Jabrai Jordan Copney of New York—but only through Copney's girlfriend, Harvard senior Brittany Smith (who is allowed to graduate next month). Campbell, a Packer College Institute graduate who earned many scholarships, tells the Post, "I'm hurt and I'm confused. For me not to be graduating is frustrating. Harvard is doing this to me because I'm black, I'm poor and I'm from Brooklyn...I'm feeling I'm being scapegoated and I can't defend myself." Her lawyer adds that Harvard hasn't given a reason for banning his client from campus, "I've been practicing law for almost 17 years and have rarely come across someone as highly educated and articulate as Chanequa... What [Harvard has] done to Chanequa is equivalent to having your house foreclosed and losing your job on the same day."

Juicy Campus, the multi-college message board where students anonymously post malicious comments about each other, is facing legal action in New Jersey, where prosecutors have subpoenaed the website’s records. The NJ Attorney General is trying to bring the site down on a technicality of sorts, by accusing Juicy Campus of violating the state's Consumer Fraud Act – because while the site claims it doesn't allow offensive material, there is no way for users to report or dispute slanderous comments.

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Lincoln Center Tree Lighting 2007 (Monday, 5:30 p.m, WABC 7) Good Morning America’s Sam Champion and WABC’s Sade Baderinwa host the first televised tree lighting of the season. There will be some performances by Lincoln Center’s resident companies and some guest’s from channel 7’s owner Disney on hand for entertainment for the 8th annual Lincoln Center Holiday Tree lighting. America at a Crossroads (Monday, 9:00 p.m &...

The Princeton Review released its annual "The Best 366 Colleges" rankings, and NYC college schools make some interesting showings. The New School is number 1 for "Best College Town" (Barnard, Columbia, and NYU are also in the top 10), while Queens College is the third most sober.

One casualty of MAS's proposal would be the Robert Moses Playground, home of the East End Hockey Association. The mostly featureless lot hosts the local roller hockey league, which is claiming that Robert Moses Playground is the only area of its type on the East Side that it can use. MAS is proposing that the playground be traded to the U.N., which would build a 35-story tower on the land, in exchange for waterfront access to complete the greenway.

TONY blog has a report on the most endangered sites in the world. The World Monuments Fund released its 2008 list yesterday, which is packed with far off places.

Governor Eliot Spitzer has reached the 100-day mark of his term as New York's highest official - now, just about 1360 more to go! His biggest battle thus far has been getting a budget passed (the final budget was a couple billion more than what he proposed and many deals were made secretly, but it was only a few hours late) while one of the most vocal fights has been the televised war of the words between the hospitals union and Spitzer over the hospital closings. Naturally, Spitzer is pretty pleased with himself, as he tells the Post:

My reflection on the first three months and as we move into the first 100 days is that we've accomplished virtually the entire agenda we set out to accomplish in this time frame. We've made significant steps forward on a range of issues that were tough and will bare fruit. There's much work to be done in the context of both government reform, energy...and interests not addressed in the budget such as a judicial [pay raise] agenda."

This is a relatively minor incident, but the photograph from the Post elevates this story to a new level. James Monroe Campus High School had ordered a new 7' by 9' scoreboard to replace their current, barely working 50-year old one. But when the scoreboard arrived, there was no door big enough for it to fit through! The Post reports that deliveryman spent four hours trying to find an entrance at the Bronx school accommodating enough to no avail.

The death of the written word must be near, because City College wants to build a power plant inside its library. Via the Columbia Spectator, the school wants to build a 16,700 square foot power plant in the 20,722 square foot Morris Raphael Cohen Library - an 80% reduction of space. The power plant would be used to support two new science facilities, which begs the question, why couldn't they build the power plant in the Science and Engineering Library?

In 2005, a Columbia graduate student in statistics emailed us, noticing "a mean 10.2 and a median 8.0 rats per night" on West 108th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam. One solution was cats, another was rat snakes. But now it seems that the rats have moved to Columbia's campus. From the Columbia Spectator:

Columbia College Student Council President Seth Flaxman, CC '07, sent an e-mail to Senior Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin asking the administration to address the problem.

Continue reading "Rats Love Higher Learning"

Red Hook, by F. Trainer. Reminder: you can contribute photos to Gothamist by tagging them "gothamist" on Flickr, or sending them to photos(@)gothamist (dot) com. Please make sure the photos are at least 640px wide-- it's hard for us to use smaller shots!

Hard N Phirm is comedians Chris Hardwick and Mike Phirman. In this interview they discuss patriotic dinosaurs, My Dinner with Andre, and Cop Rock.

It was good. I did Oh, Hello, Invite Them Up, and last night I did a show that Eugene did for the first time in Brooklyn at a place called Union Hall. It was Todd Barry, A.D. Miles, Eugene, and myself. It was great. A really cool local Parkslope sort of crowd.

Last night at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University, the Brooklyn Bombshells handed the Queens of Pain their first defeat ever in the short history of the Gotham Girls Roller Derby. There were elbows thrown, hips checked, and girls going down left and right. Brooklyn came out on top in front of a sold out home crowd that saw a match that wasn't decided until late into the 2nd half. By the time the time ran out, the Bombers outscored the Pain, 73-64.

A senior at Columbia's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is still missing, worrying his family and friends. Richard Ng was last seen leaving his dorm at East Campus around 10PM on Sunday night and hasn't been heard from since. Reports say he may have been at the West 72nd Street 1/2/3 station around 10:30PM that night. His family finds it unlikely that Richard would go anywhere without letting them know, and his teachers say he was on track to graduate. You can see a video of WCBS 2's report here; it shows Ng's parents putting up "missing" posters on the Upper West Side, which was sad, and the either the reporter or anchor who intro'd the piece called it a "real life" Without a Trace, which was sad in another way.

If you had to guess which public or private University in America had the most Jews, you might be tempted to guess Yeshiva University uptown, or perhaps Brooklyn College-- but you'd be so so wrong. The real answer is NYU! Yep, it turns out that our homely downtown alma mater has more Jews than any other school in the country-- so step off, University of Maryland! Washington Square News has the report:

Comedy Legends Live: The inimitable Carl Reiner speaks with Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Susie Essman. Reiner—comedian, actor, novelist and director— was a creator, writer and producer for The Dick Van Dyke Show. In 1999, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the Kennedy Center and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. Come check out a legend.

What's in my Go Bag? Not Gilbert Gottfried, I can assure you. (A better question might be, "What's in my Go Cup?")

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