“Andrew Berman’s public utterances are discouragingly full of falsehoods and willful misinformation. The essence of bad faith is saying things you know not to be true, and that’s precisely what Andrew Berman has done here. It is a disturbing misuse of his position as the public voice of the venerable Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, and his attempts to inflame neighborhood passion through carelessness and inaccuracies is deeply regrettable. We publicly call on him to retract his false assertions.
“NYU has been a part of the Greenwich Village community for 175 years. The construction of this student residence is NOT an expansion of the University or its student housing system - it is a replacement for a property we currently lease to house students near the South Street Seaport, and an effort to move some of our undergraduates closer to campus.
“His claim about the building’s height is false. The building is not — as he was claiming yesterday to media (The Villager) and in a letter to NYU — over 300 feet, or even, as he back-tracked today, 260 feet. It is 242 feet, which was the height range the University always indicated it expected the building to be.
“His claim about members of the community not being informed is false. Contrary to his claims that NYU had not informed the community about the start of construction, NYU told elected officials and community board representatives about the filing of permits and the start of construction three weeks ago, and NYU’s developer told neighbors and the St. Ann’s Committee at that same time.
“His claims that the community’s redesign proposals were ignored are false. NYU looked at these options and determined that they would cost an additional $13 million and would only lower the height by 10 feet. Elected officials, community board representatives and the St. Ann’s Committee were informed of this some three weeks ago.
“NYU finds today’s these false accusations deeply unfortunate, and we regret the poisonous tone that Mr. Berman has been trying to set for the neighborhood.”