The Big Apple is supporting Columbia University in its war to keep its doors closed.
The city’s lawyers said that the Ivy League school should be able to block the public from a dear community space on its Morningsis Heights campus, after the outraged locals demand to get access.
“This has always been private property,” argued Rachel OSTON, main advisor of the city’s law department, in court this week.
In the heart of the legal battle is the university, a path that was once bustling on West 116th Street that allows pedestrians to cross the school campus instead of being forced to walk around the six blocks that Columbia takes.
The members of the Morningsis Heights community coalition are furious by Columbia’s decision to close the doors at the close of the catwalk, a closure that entered into force the chaotic protests of the chaotic students last year on the Israel-Hamas War.
“It has been a great public space,” said Dave Robinson, president of the neighborhood group, to The Post.
“Student’s life really enriches [and] Enriches people’s lives in the community to have those interactions, “Robinson said.” Our children played on campus. The groups after school come there.
“It has been a very important public space for people living in the community, and that is obscured by arguments about security, what security is important, but it is not the only thing.”
The closure only allows those with a valid columbia identification to enter the main campus, which extends from West 114th to West 120th Streets. The locals can request a pass, but the unhappy neighbors argue that it is a complicated process for older elderly and leads to long waiting and congestion times in the street.
After presenting requests and an open letter that demands the reopening of the campus to the public, the resident of Morningsis Heights, Philippe AUFFFray-Alongsis, three other gray-seat-seat locals of the University in January, previously reported.
“[Columbia] It is part of the community, they are not he Community, ”Auffray told the post, added that his 97 -year -old mother can no longer carry out her daily activities since the closing.
“Anyone who is trying to go to the subway or buses, all those people are deprived of their rights, and only shows that Columbia is a bad neighbor.”
Among the arguments of the locals is that the section of the quadruple space in West 116th Street intended to remain public after the city sold it to the private institution decades ago.
Columbia, who is believed to be the largest private landowner in the Big Apple, according to the reports, paid the city $ 1,000 in 1953 to take charge of the West 116th Street section.
The agreement demanded a “servitude on a proposed pedestrian walk to be built by the university,” according to a report by the City Planning Commission that year.
The language of the city agreement, partly if the “pedestrian walk” is public or private, was at the Oral Arguments Center in the case of Auffray in the Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Columbia’s lawyers pointed out that the West 116th Street section between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue does not exist as a road in the city maps, and the campus has closed without problems for graduations and other cases, such as terrorist attacks of September 1, 2001, without problems.
“In a perfect world, we would all like to return to the pre-oct. 7, 2023, but that is not the world we live in today,” said a Columbia lawyer in court.
“The university is trying the best to move in that direction.”
Even OSCON, the city’s lawyer, agreed, tells the Court that the servitude simply grants to the city the ability to make hydrants and handling repairs.
But Toby Golick, the lawyer’s lawyer, a very different interpretation of the city’s agreement with the elite institution, and argued that there would have been an opposition from the mass community at that time if the agreement really faced a west of the west.
The agreement “unequivocally creates a pedestrian servitude,” said Golick, added that closing the campus to the public creates a “burden for the community [that] It is very significant. “
Golick told horror stories of the other senior plaintiffs, including the longest trips of Barbara Griffiths, 92, to the grocery store and how Mary Allen, 86, had lost a “line of life” to the rest of the community.
“[Allen] I just loved to sit there and see the students, there or essays and parents with their young children, it was an animated place, “Golick said before The Post.” And now it is a kind of dead place. “
Judge David Cohen, who the application for the plaintiffs to temporarily reopen the Testday doors as the case progresses, concluded that there were “valid arguments on both sides and the Netty side have the day.”
The motion of the school to dismiss the case will be heard next month.
Columbia first closed the access of the campus to the public after a protest of October 7, 2023 and again last April, and has maintained its closed doors, despite a September notice of the school saying that he anticipated that they were reduced in a “issue of weeks, not months.”
“The University evaluates access to the Morningsis Campus on a basis,” said a Columbia representative to The Post.
“In response to the contributions of many interested parties, in February we implement changes to access the protocols that rationalize access for alumni, our residents of Morningsis Heights and West Harlem, the family of the faculty and university guests,” said the statement. “We are continuous to communicate regularly with our neighbors and the local community with respect to the thesis and other modifications to access to campus.”
Even so, the members of the Coalition of the Morningsis Heights community said Columbia has created a barrier to the community and closed a space where both children and older people enjoy.
“In addition to any legal consideration, this is a moral and centered issue,” said Dan McSweeney, a resident of West 111th Street that is part of the local group.
“This is ridiculous and is not making anyone safer,” he told the post. “It is causing many problems, not only for the elderly, but also to the disabled people living in Avenida. Why should that be the case if this has been a public walk for more than 70 years?”
