We briefly noted yesterday that a 23-year-old business student at NYU made over $100,000 in two days selling t-shirts that trumpeted the death of Osama Bin Laden. But now CBS is reporting that the budding entrepreneur, Maurice Harary, had a change of heart, and is refunding all of the proceeds: "Celebrating over the death of someone, whoever it is, is evil in my eyes." No word on whether the newly-enlightened Harary plans to confiscate every Che Guevara shirt at NYU. more ›

New York University has plans to grow its physical size by 40%, according to the NY Times, which says they include "a new tower on Bleecker Street... three million square feet of new classrooms, dormitories and offices in the Greenwich Village area... a new engineering school in Brooklyn and a satellite campus on Governors Island, complete with dorms and faculty housing." Ultimately, NYU wants to add another 6 million square feet, which will cost about $1,000/square foot, by 2031. more ›

New research contends that it's not just the Lower East Side's distinctive architecture and character that are in danger — but also the neighborhood's unique dialect. Younger LES residents whose families have lived in the neighborhood for decades no longer speak with the recognizable inflection of older generations, according to a New York University linguistics student. more ›

About 6,000 gallons of heating fuel leaked out of a tank in the basement of a New York University-owned housing complex yesterday. It's unclear exactly what caused the oil to spill out of the tank — which is a backup system for heating and hot water in NYU's Washington Square Village development at Bleecker and Mercer streets, according to the Daily News. "We are determined to figure out what caused the spill and resolve it," said university spokesman John Beckman. Residents were not evacuated from the buildings, but some complained of fumes from the fuel in hallways and stairways. "You breathe this stuff in for five minutes, you'll get headaches," said Irish studies professor John Waters, 45, who lives on the sixth floor with his wife and daughter. "This is a disaster." more ›

Reports are coming across the police scanner of a "large oil fuel spill" in New York University's Washington Square Village. According to dispatches, about 6,000 gallons of heating oil have spilled in the basement of the graduate student housing complex at the corner of Bleecker and Mercer streets. NYU personnel are apparently attempting to pump the oil out of the basement. The spill takes place about a block away from the site of NYU's new underground cogeneration facility, which is intended to improve energy efficiency while reducing "fuel consumption and associated emissions of pollutants to the environment." more ›

Investigators claim that an administrator for New York University's chemistry department heisted $409,000 from the school through a phony invoice scam. John Runowicz, 47, is accused of "scavenging" through the trash outside of Warehouse Wines on Broadway — just one block from his office — and fishing out liquor receipts that he would use to request petty cash reimbursements from NYU for chemistry department expenditures. more ›

At 10:00 p.m. last night, some 70 students from NYU and the New School barricaded themselves inside a cafeteria on the third floor of NYU's Kimmel Center. The group, which includes members of "Take Back NYU!", is vowing to extend the occupation "indefinitely" until the university's administrators comply with a series of demands "to make our school more democratic, accountable and socially just." more ›

Just weeks into the first semester, students narced out an unidentified NYU freshman for allegedly selling coke from her dorm room, prompting her expulsion from the residence. That a student at an obscenely expensive university was supplementing her allowance by slinging a little yey is hardly a shocker. But what's raising eyebrows over at the campus paper is that her room was never searched, no evidence was collected, she wasn't formally charged with a crime, and the accusations were never passed along to campus cops or the NYPD. more ›

Brooklyn College is joining the ranks of other New York academic establishments by adding a dorm next spring (something they've already started, and stopped, work on). The school has a little over 15,000 grads and undergrads, with about 99% hailing from New York and 77% from Brooklyn. The school hopes that by adding a dorm, some out-of-staters will flock to Midwood. more ›

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a former NYU student against the university after he broke his hip in a Jell-O wrestling tussle gone horribly wrong. As a junior in 2004, Avram Wisnia was one of the organizers of what was supposed to be a totally awesome “Beach Bash” event, held in an NYU dormitory courtyard with water guns, water balloons, and a kiddie pool filled with the gelatinous snack. Wisnia sought a million dollars in damages for his injury, claiming the university was at fault for sanctioning the bash, providing the Jell-O and failing to “maintain a safe condition.” more ›

New York University's Child Study Center is pulling the plug on a controversial ad campaign publicizing childhood mental health problems that was considered stigmatizing. The campaign was meant to raise awareness of conditions like Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Asperger's Syndrome, autism, depression, and bulimia. more ›

A sophomore at New York University was found dead in his Water Street dorm room on Friday night. The Washington Square News reports that other residents were told about the death on Saturday and that the university did not send out an NYU community-wide email per a request from the deceased students' parents: "The family has asked that they be accorded the utmost privacy, and the university will do its best to honor its wishes... more ›

New York University is urging students who are feeling overwhelmed to contact the school's mental health facilities, a few days after one of its incoming freshman killed himself by jumping from the 15th-floor roof of his Union Square dorm on East 14th St. Eighteen-year-old "Trey" Allan Oakley Hunter III leapt to his death minutes after texting a goodbye message to his parents and brother. In an email sent out to students, university president John Sexton described how young people far from home and confronted with an alien environment that can seem overwhelming often make irreversible and tragic decisions. more ›

A freshman from New York University apparently committed suicide yesterday morning. The student, Allan Oakley Hunter III, jumped from the roof of University Hall, a 15-story dorm at 110 East 14th Street; his body was found in the courtyard. The Washington Square News reports that police were searching his room around 10AM yesterday morning and that his body was removed by 1PM. more ›

As it is the week before Labor Day, many area schools are welcoming a new class of students to New York in what is generally known as an orientation week. The New York Sun reports on various efforts schools put into shepherding thousands of 18-year-olds into NYC.

First-year students arriving at Barnard, Columbia, and New York University have many activities to choose from this week, including: yoga classes, exclusive tours of the new Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, chartered Circle Line cruises to the Statue of Liberty, mini-manicures and aromatherapy at on-campus spas, Coney Island beach parties, scavenger hunts in Times Square, walking tours of the East Village and Park Slope, shopping expeditions to SoHo, outings to popular local eateries such as Magnolia Bakery, and a chance to compete for free tickets and reservations to the city's hottest shows and hard-to-get-into restaurants.

New York University is reaching out to placate New Yorkers whose parking is disrupted by incoming students by paying to place cars in garages. An annual headache for New York residents is NYU's move-in day, when thousands of students arrive in the city en masse to take up dorm life at one of the school's many residences. Streets are blocked off as parents line up car after car, many pulled onto the curb itself. NY1 quotes a West Village resident who describes the situation as not chaotic, but "a lot of commotion." more ›

Yesterday we got a tip that Polytechnic University posted an emergency message on their site. Later it became clear in an update to the tipster that "NYU is taking over Polytechnic, which will become Polytechnic Institute of New York University." more ›

Mayor Bloomberg has been an independent all of a couple days, but there is tons of ink being devoted to his chances. The most interesting story is from the NY Sun, which offers various scenarios where Bloomberg could win the 2008 presidential election (not that he wants to run for president). For instance, he'd need the Northeast, West Coast, Florida, and Heartland states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, etc. And if "extreme" candidates run in the parties, like Romney or Thompson on the Republican ticket and Obama or Edwards for the Democrats, Bloomberg could be a player. more ›

Perhaps New York University finally felt that it owned enough New York real estate, because now it's thinking about buying up parts of Paris, France. The American University of Paris is building new facilities on an island in the Seine in a partnership with NYU, and hopes to one day become absorbed into the New York school's system. 90% of the Paris school's students hail from outside of France and the American University of Paris has a year-old reciprocity agreement with NYU that allow enrollees to earn degrees from either school. more ›

Last year around this time, the Observer pitted Williamsburg hipsters and Park Slope yuppies against each other. This year, the Observer tackles the yearning some native New Yorkers have for when NYC was bad (sorta like Michael Jackson video Bad!). Summer of Sam, Needle Park, Ford telling the city to drop dead, all of it seems better than it is now. Here's what some people told the Observer:

- “I was flashed all the time—that’s how a true private all-girl kid learned about the male anatomy,” wrote Liz Alderman, 32, a television producer and former Brearley lass, in an e-mail. more ›

A guilty pleasure many people have is watching Dateline's To Catch a Predator. We assume so, because it's on a lot and because there's nothing as satisfying as watching people try to weasel their way out of chatroom transcripts and out of the clutches of swamp things. So we're glad that the Asbury Park Press and Staten Island Advance are keeping tabs on the show. more ›

Since NYU hasn't had a Minutemen style brouhaha lately, some NYU students - including two College Republicans - appeared on Neil Cavuto's Fox News program to detail the difficulties of being a conservative in the classroom. From the Washington Square News:

Senior Sara Zerner and NYU College Republicans David Laska and Christina Gonzalez participated in a short segment of "Your World With Neil Cavuto," after Fox News approached the NYU College Republicans. more ›

In a feature that can only be described as "why Gothamist is so hungry so early, Fast Food nation be damned," the NY Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni went on a 9 day, 3,650 mile tour of fast food restaurants across the country, enjoying some selections more than others and learning to ask for the "most popular" items, instead of "recommendations." And he also muses about some chains that need some more exposure in the city:

I expected Chick-fil-A to be good. It didn't disappoint. Its standard chicken sandwich, a lightly coated breast fillet with little adornment, was meaty and tender, and the bun cradling it couldn't have been fluffier. We need more Chick-fil-A in New York City. (There's just one branch, at New York University.) We need it fast. more ›

During this Sunday's 60 Minutes, Philip Seymour Hoffman will reveal that he really loved doing drugs when he was younger. Here's what the 60 Minutes website says:

For the first time publicly, the actor, hailed for his performance as author Truman Capote, talks about his decision to get help for substance abuse... more ›

Welcome to 2006! What's coming up in events around the city...sex, drugs, and rock & roll. And also some art and design (all downtown, of course). Some things never change, even with the passing of a year. more ›

New York University is set to ban Coca-Cola products from campus on December 8th, unless the company agrees to an independent investigation of its Colombian bottling operations. Coke has been dogged for years by rumors of unspeakable brutality at the Colombian plants-- everything from kidnappings to murder-- and for the last couple of years, a national movement led by KillerCoke has been organizing bans on university campuses across the United States. Already 19 colleges have banned Coca-Cola from their campus vending machines, but given that NYU is the largest private higher-ed institution in the country, this could be a huge victory for the anti-Coke activists. Washington Square News captured some student reactions to the ban: more ›

The NY Times has an obituary for 95 year old Edith Spivack, a lawyer for the city's Law Department, and she lived a long, amazing life. Spivack started working for the city in 1934 and only retired last year, and in those 70 years of working for the city (and through 10 mayors, from LaGuardia to Bloomberg), she helped keep the city out of bankruptcy in the 1960s and would make foreign consulates pay their water bills by calling them up herself. Plus, Spivack was funny:

At a Christmas party last year at which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg awarded her a public service plaque, the mayor tried to make small talk and asked when she graduated from college. Ms. Spivack replied that she graduated from Barnard College in 1929. more ›

Man in Gray more ›

New York University has had a remarkable rise into the top echelons of universities, in terms of a strong academic programs and desirability from prospective students, but it's also had it rough. Over the past few years, there were a spate of student suicides and outcries over its rapid downtown development. And now, there's a spate of deep-pocketed donors who have turned out to be frauds. Alberto Vilar, a supposed billionaire philanthropist, pulled the wool over NYU's eyes, as well as a number of other arts organizations, after his May arrest for fraud. Vilar had donated $23 million to NYU, to start a "Rhodes-like program" for arts scholars in 2001. However, Gothamist believes we read that no students were accepted into the program because there was never any money. D'oh! more ›

Murtaza Vali, Graduate Student more ›