Rallying Against NYU's 2031 Plan

On February 11, I joined Assembly Member Deborah Glick, Community Action Alliance on NYU 2031, Greenwich Village Block Associations, and Friends of LaGuardia Place for a rally to preserve the Village and in opposition to NYU’s 2031 plan to add nearly two and a half million square feet of campus space on its two superblocks south of Washington Square Park.

Although I respect the City’s land use review procedure, and rarely speak out on an application before the Community Board has had its say, this project is simply too big and out of scale with our community for me not to rally against it.  Further, it would destroy our beloved Sasaki Garden and cut off access to public open space in our park-starved neighborhood, turning it into a campus plaza for students – not for us.

As I said at the rally, I applaud Brad Hoylman and everyone on CB2 for all of their hard work analyzing every aspect of this proposed development. Since the university first filed its application nearly a year ago, these volunteers have dedicated themselves to fighting for the Village. Over the two months of public hearings they have spent countless hours thoroughly reviewing the potential impacts of this proposal to strengthen our side in this fight.

NYU is part of our community but we will not – and cannot – allow it to barrel forward with these large-scale, Village-swallowing plans without respect for our neighborhood, our neighbors and all that we love in the Village.