Yesterday, the father of the Columbia graduate student who died after running into traffic--while trying to flee a teen attacker--testified in Family Court yesterday. A 14-year-old boy, Sheldon J., admitted to punching 24-year-old Minghui Yu on a traffic median near the Columbia campus; Yu ran into busy Broadway traffic and was fatally hit by a car. The Post reports that testimony from Yu's father, who traveled from China with his wife, moved the defendant and......

Photograph of the memorial service held for Minghui Yu earlier this week by Daniella Zalcman on Flickr The 14-year-old boy whose actions led to the death of a Columbia graduate student was arraigned in Family Court yesterday. An NYPD detective told the judge that Sheldon (whose last name is withheld due to his age) admitted to repeatedly punching 24-year-old Minghui Yu in the head "a couple times." But, according to Detective John Garvey, the......

The 14-year-old boy held for second-degree manslaughter in the death of a Columbia graduate student appeared in family court yesterday, as lawyers, police officials, and an aunt who cares for him weighed in. A judge assigned the boy, named Sheldon, lawyers and decided he would be tried as a juvenile offender in Family Court. A city Law Department attorney told the court, "This attack was predatory in nature." The boy, named Sheldon, had punched 24-year-old......

Police say that two teenaged boys led them to the 13- (or 14-) year-old charged with manslaughter in the death of Columbia graduate student Minghui Yu. On Friday night, the teen had punched Yu in the face at a median on Broadway between 122nd and 123rd Streets. After a struggle, Yu managed to escape and ran into the street, only to be fatally hit by a car. The police have not charged the two other......

A 24-year-old Columbia University student studying late at the library Friday evening is in critical condition at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan after his bid to escape a pair of muggers ended in serious injury under the wheels of a Jeep. According to WABC News, the student had just left the library on Columbia's Morningside Heights campus and was waiting for a bus around 9 p.m., when he was approached by two young men. It's......

Columbia University’s 17-acre, $7 billion dollar expansion plan (which was approved late last year) has some up in arms, and standing firm. Anne Whitman, owner of a building in the midst of the expansion territory, wants the University to move her owner-occupied building instead of having to give it up altogether. The building, a 1903 dairy stable purchased by her father in 1972, currently houses her antique moving and storage company. Originally part of Sheffield......

2007 Columbia Class Day Speaker Matthew Fox at left, 2008 Class Day Speaker Joel Klein at right In 2006, the graduating class of Columbia's undergraduate college had Senator John McCain as a Class Day speaker. Last year, it was actor Matthew Fox. And this year's speaker will be...Schools Chancellor Joel Klein! To which seniors said, "I don't know anything about him" and "I have no idea who he is." The Columbia Spectator had an......

A man waiting for a downtown train at the 116th Street station last Friday jumped into the subway tracks, crossed the third rail in order to save a man who fell on the uptown side. Veeramuthu Kalimuthu, a Columbia University mechanic, managed to lift the man to the platform and then crossed the tracks again in order to catch a downtown train. A Bwog tipster at the scene said a man tumbled off the platform......

Columbia University has a new financial aid plan for undergraduate students whose families make between $60,000-100,000. Following in the footsteps of other Ivy League schools, they will significantly expand the aid currently offered to lower and middle income students. The VP of Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks said, “Our new financial aid policies reflect a more realistic view of the challenges that lower- and middle-income families face in paying for college.” The new plan will......

Juicy Campus, the multi-college message board, has been generating controversy at Columbia University because of the site’s discussions, which feature edifying topics ranging from “Fattect [sic] Girl that Looks Good at Columbia ” to “Males at Columbia – Dickless Wonders.” Michelle Diamond, president of the Columbia student council, has been exploring the feasibility of blocking the site from the University web servers. Alternatively, Diamond may initiate a campus-wide "pledge" against Juicy Campus, in which students......

The Columbia University community is currently divided over the controversy involving a professor's possible plagiarism, which has escalated to racial politics. After an investigation, Teachers College administration found plagiarism charges against Madonna Constantine were substantiated and sanctioned the tenured professor of counseling and clinical psychology. Further heightening tensions is last year's still-unsolved incident, where Constantine found a four foot-long noose affixed to her office door. Constantine denies the plagiarism allegations, suggesting she's actually the victim......

The Columbia Teachers College professor who was in the news last year when a noose was found on her office door angrily denied she plagiarized others' work. Madonna Constantine, who the Teachers College sanctioned after a year-and-a-half investigation, will appeal the charges. Constantine, who remains a tenured professor, issued a statement, calling the memo (released to TC faculty) discussing sanctions "premature, vindictive, and mean-spirited," lacking "sensitivity and due process." She wondered "whether a White faculty......

If you've perused the latest issue of the New Yorker, you may have noticed a rather long letter to the editor about a January cover (by Mark Ulriksen, pictured above). If you didn't, here's how the letter starts:Mark Ulriksen’s “Winter Pleasures,” an impressionistic rendering of Grand Central Terminal’s main concourse, depicts the famous golden clock bathed in sunlight (Cover, January 28th). Note that this can be only an eastward morning scene, not a westward......

Professor, author and activist Robert Thurman is widely regarded as the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism, having been a major force in the widespread introduction of Tibetan culture and religion to the west. In 1962, Thurman became the first American ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, but after a few years he shifted from strict monasticism to the more conventional lifestyle of an academic. Though currently on sabbatical to write another book, Thurman remains......

Last year, the federal authorities had been looking for Esther Elizabeth Reed, a woman who faked her way into attending Harvard, Cal State and most recently Columbia University, by using a dead woman's identity. Reed was on the lam, but this past weekend's murders at a mall outside Chicago led the police to Reed, who had been living in the very same town the killings occurred. In 2006, while in NYC, Reed had applied for......

Above right image from WNBC, below photograph of 58 Remsen Street from the Daily News Yesterday we mentioned that a cache of weapons - including a number of pipe bombs - were found in a Remsen Street apartment in Brooklyn Heights. Now it turns out the apartment was shared by an ex-con and a professor at Columbia University! Ivaylo Ivanov got the attention of police around 1AM yesterday morning, claiming he was shot in......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a suspicious fire at Prospect Ave. and Ritter Pl. in the Bronx, an armed robbery attempt at Tavern on the Green in Central Park and West 67th St. in Manhattan, and an armed robbery on East 84th St. in Manhattan. A Staten Island native and veteran of the war in Iraq, Christopher Small, was killed in central Pennsylvania after he asked uninvited guests at his best friend's daughter's birthday......

Miss Heather has a sigh-inducing story of police harassment on her site this week indicating that police still do not understand that taking pictures in public is not against the law. Or maybe they do know it's not against the law, but it'll still earn one detainment and a grilling. Was Miss Heather taking pictures of chemical facilities, rail junctions, bridges, or tunnels? No, she was taking shots of neighborhood Christmas decorations in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.P.O.:......

“I don’t think we should rush to give Columbia University a Christmas present,” city councilman Charles Barron said before voting against Columbia University’s 17-acre, $7 billion dollar expansion plan. But though many council members dissented or declined to vote, the plan was approved yesterday by the city council, who voted a month earlier than expected. The stage is now set for what could be a fierce eminent domain battle between the university and some commercial......

It’s that time of year again when New Yorkers debate how much to tip the – deep breath – doorman, super, handyman, locker room attendant, trainer, baby sitter, dog walker, beauty salon, cleaning person, day care center, garbage collector, mail carrier, paperboy and parking attendant(s). Sewell Chan, the Times’s Man on the Web, has tied himself to the tipping post with a 1,780 word monograph on the subject, largely sourced from Doorman, a book by......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unsusual rescue on Laurel Ave. in Brooklyn, a school evacuation on Crescent Ave. in Queens, and an armed robbery on White Plains Rd. in the Bronx. A-Rod stays in NYC for 10 more years! Columbia University spares the Cotton Club. A City Council bill would make hanging nooses illegal, in addition to stupid. A teengager went stab-kill crazy on 13th St. when he assaulted three of his peers.......

The fatal shooting outside Radio Perfecto restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue between 118th and 119th Streets was prompted by a bar fight. Twenty-three year-old Delquan Kearns was shot in the head while his brother Stephan Jones, 27, was shot in the arm after they argued with another group of men over a drink around 3AM on Sunday. Their mother told the Post, "My sons said they were at the bar and that some guy grabbed one......

A reader wrote on Gothamist Contribute:Tonight, (Sunday, Dec 2) at 3am, there was a fight at 119th & amsterdam, in front of a bar. I was walking on the other side of the avenue, and it was clear that things were escalating. All of a sudden, I heard two gunshots -- like a 'pop', except louder, like a tire bursting -- and I saw everyone scatter; everyone walking down my side of the avenue......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unusual rescue on 68th St. and Central Park West in Manhattan, a confined space rescue at Lorimer and Meserole Sts. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on Carpenter Ave. and 221st St. in the Bronx. Columbia University is a-brimming with protests, against things like torture and apathy. A young man and his family are recovering from a freak accident involving a fallen tree branch in Riverside Park that put......

Today is a citywide "Day Out Against Hate." City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the Reverend Al Sharpton have spearheaded the event, which was prompted by a number of disturbing hate crime incidents, from swastikas in Brooklyn Heights to a noose found at the Columbia University campus. The Politicker was at one of the events this morning, where Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz "suggested, rather strongly, that city public school students be required to make......

The old saw is that one can't fight City Hall, and we can apparently add the ivory tower to the bulwarks of imperviousness. Despite fierce community opposition, Columbia University will be expanding its upper-Manhattan campus to surrounding blocks. The plan to expand the university's property by 17 acres and several blocks in each direction was approved this afternoon by the New York City Planning Commission. CityRoom reports the neighborhood meeting wasn't exactly neighborly:A majority......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a foot pursuit on West 50th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, a missing person on West 110th St. in Manhattan, and a stabbing on Grove St. and Seneca Ave. in Queens. The 57-year-old man shot to death by a federal agent during a grenade sting this week was a career criminal. Authorities believe the proposed sale of what turned out to be an inert grenade was probably just an......

That group of Columbia University students staging a hunger strike is at least a little victorious, if starving, today. Last night, the university agreed to a number of demands relating to the students' concerns that not enough was being down to encourage ethnic studies and understanding other cultures (especially in the wake of recent hate crimes). From the Columbia Spectator:The University has committed to pay for the expansion of the Office of Multicultural Affairs......

The Chronicle of Higher Education released its annual salary survey of the heads of educational institutions and the value of a college education is evidenced in the paychecks being cashed by institutions' presidents. More than a dozen heads of private universities took home more than $1 million during the 2005-06 school year. According to the New York Post, the dean of higher earning was Donald Ross, who took home $5.7 million--most in deferred compensation after......

The Columbia University students' hunger strike to protest Columbia's non-inclusive attitudes about redevelopment and curriculum continues with one less striker. Just after midnight on Sunday, a post went on up on the Columbia Hunger Strike website saying, "This evening, one hunger striker was admitted to St. Luke's hospital. She will not continue the strike for personal medical reasons." The student, Aretha Choi, who attends Barnard, later wrote:...my disappointment increases as I remember the bitter......