Advocates for NYU 2031

"While every institution in New York City accepts the need to use the space available to us as efficiently as possible, there are limits.  At a certain point, the scholarship, research, teaching, and public service at the heart of a university's mission begin to suffer without the quality laboratories, classrooms, and living spaces needed to accomplish these goals—and so too does the institution's value to the city and to society.

"There's no question that the growth of interdisciplinary academic partnerships underscores the values of locating faculty and students in close proximity to their colleagues and classmates in other disciplines.  While each must pursue our own unique paths forward, it is in the very nature of all great universities to be academic communities of shared scholarship and experiences, of living and working together.  And for our colleagues at NYU that academic community is centered in Washington Square."

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"We have achieved at the highest level and contributed to the creative economy of downtown New York, in spite of the fact that Tisch's Institute for Performing Arts has for years struggled with inadequate, obsolete, sometimes dangerous and cramped facilities.  Those facilities are at a crisis point.  In order to continue to make contributions to the Village, New York City and the creative landscape of world culture, we have embarked on an ambitious plan to design the world's finest performing arts training center.

"The promise of the superblocks is the most appropriate space for a new Performing Arts Center.  Without facilities like these, we cease being competitive with other theater and performing arts training centers around the country."

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"The problem for all of our bench sciences is that we simply do not have the space to teach the students we have. It is terrible to have to tell our students to 'wait to see' if someone withdraws from a class that is required for graduation. Things have gotten so bad that I worry that we will reach a point soon where I will have to limit the admission of qualified students in our entering class interested in the sciences because we don't have room.

"Soon, even keeping the size of our Freshman class the same, as we plan to do, we would have to turn away the growing proportion of students interested in the sciences—in the fields that are future of our country—because of the number of laboratory seats available. If we are to keep up with the needs of our students and with the needs for a workforce educated in science and technology, we have to have the space to educate them."

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"In response to both design and neighborhood character concerns, NYU has judiciously concentrated this program on the 'superblocks'—land that is owned by NYU and is dominated by more modern structures and landscapes than those that are typically found in Greenwich Village, NoHo and SoHo.

"Today those superblocks are not integrated with these great New York neighborhoods. In the future, the plan seeks to re-integrate those blocks by building new streetwalls, fantastic new open space, and important community facilities."

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"I don't think anyone here today could imagine the Village without NYU, especially the small business community. From the Chamber's point of view, NYU's 16,000 employees and 40,000 students provide the economic lifeblood for our neighborhood. It is estimated that NYU's Washington Square campus directly and indirectly accounts for more than $2.25 billion in economy activity every year and nearly 25,000 jobs."

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