Outside Cooper Union, the NYPD warns about death from above

Heh. "Authorized Drone Strike Zone." But just 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., though that includes Sunday, per the sign.

More about the signs via The New Yorker here (subscription required) ... and CNN.

Spotted by EV Grieve reader Blaine this morning.

Looking at the Free Cooper Union truck

Easier to read when the truck is parked... not so much when driving down the street...

Photo by Dave on 7th.

Previously.

Tonight: Free Cooper Union! A Community Summit

From the EV Grieve inbox...

[Image via]

Here is the official notification and invite of the long awaited COOPER COMMUNITY SUMMIT.

MONDAY DECEMBER 5TH
THE GREAT HALL, THE COOPER UNION FOUNDATION BUILDING
6:30-9:30 PM

It is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to have your presence and spirit at this event, which is going to be open to both the entire Cooper Union Community and the public. Please join us in the fight to preserve our mission to continue to provide the best undergraduate education "AS FREE AS AIR AND WATER" in art, architecture, and engineering.

Please find full event details and information below. Feel free to circulate, join on Facebook and INVITE EVERYONE.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Join your fellow alumni, students, faculty, staff, and friends for a series of alumni-led presentations on the current circumstances of The Cooper Union, followed by breakout discussions on keeping Cooper wild, healthy, brilliant – and “free as air and water.”

“I trust that all the youth of our city and country, through all coming time, will realise that this Institution has been organised for their special use and improvement; and I trust that they will rally around and protect it, and make it like a city set on a hill, that cannot be hid.” —Peter Cooper, November 2, 1859.

WHO: Free to Cooper students, alumni, staff, faculty, and our friends in the general public! Bring your Cooper ID or an Alumni Association Card, if you have one. Please RSVP in advance to freecooperunionforum@gmail.com as a courtesy.

Find all the details here.

[EVG Flashback] When the Christodora House became a Greek house

Originally posted on Sept. 9, 2008...

[Photos by Charlie Kerman]

In 1983, when the Christodora House on Avenue B was still abandoned, members of the Tau Delta Phi, Delta Eta Chapter at Cooper Union, placed their Greek letters on the west side atop the 17-floor building. Don't have a lot of details, such as how long the letters remained there. Long enough for a photo opp, of course. Photos of the letters crew are below. (Note the condition of the Christodora...)

'Gesture of unity' yesterday at Cooper Union

In response to news that Cooper Union might establish an annual tuition, students and faculty members decided yesterday afternoon to hold classes outdoors to raise awareness of the situation.

This is how third-year student Christian Hincapie described what happened to me via email:

"As a symbol of solidarity among the Cooper Union Community, student, staff and faculty decided to walk-out, work-out, and act out. The studios were brought outside, classes were held in front of the Foundation building and people generally hung out and communed. This was a gesture of unity among the Cooper Union Community that was organized by students in order to communicate to the administration and the President that tuition CAN NOT be on the table. The principles and integrity of the school are at danger if tuition continues to be an option."

Said student Pete Halupka (via email):

"I have attended four other schools besides The Cooper Union. I left every one of those four schools pushing to attend a program and institution like The Cooper Union. That is a school driven by motivated, talented intellectuals and creatives, need blind, and, therefore, creating a tightly knit, highly selective body of passionate individuals. Most importantly, it is not a business. It is not an institution which crafts their decisions around growth and profit."

Hincapie also shot this video...



Runnin' Scared has more on this story here.

Photos by Pete Halupka

Cooper Union agrees to reduce the rent for St. Mark's Bookshop; plus, awkward photo opp!

Things were looking gloomy and doomy for a rent reduction for St. Mark's Bookshop's. Just last week we learned that its landlord, Cooper Union, was broke. The Bookshop owners weren't expecting any deal.

But!

John Leland at The New York Times reports the following:

That changed on Tuesday, said the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, who met with both parties to work out an agreement. At a meeting in Mr. Stringer’s office, the college agreed to reduce the store’s rent to about $17,500 a month from about $20,000 for one year, and to forgive $7,000 in debt. The school will also provide student help with revising the store’s business plan.

Regardless, co-owner Bob Contant described the store's finances as "fragile."

Meanwhile... AWKWARD PHOTO OPP! From Stringer's office:

At 11 a.m., Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer will join Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha and bookshop owners Bob Contant and Terry McCoy to make a joint announcement about the future of the St. Mark’s Bookshop.

Who: Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer
Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha
Bob Contant and Terry McCoy
Local elected officials and community leaders

Where: St. Mark’s Bookshop - 31 3rd Avenue

Cooper Union contemplates charging tuition for the first time; faces $16.5 million budget deficit

Wow, the Coop is considering charging undergraduate students tuition for the first time since its founding in 1859, according to The New York Times today.

Per the article:

[University president Jamshed] Bharucha said that in recent decades, the school had resorted to unsustainable practices to support its operations — like selling assets and dipping into the principal of its endowment, which stood at $577 million in mid-2010 — rather than just spending the endowment’s earnings. In recent years, it also spent heavily on a new academic building and renovations of its historic building, both on Cooper Square.

The school also generates significant income from real estate it owns, including the land under the Chrysler Building, but the value of those properties has also been dropping.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the school's $16.5 million budget deficit this year has been growing for decades.

Nothing definite about the tuition, Bharucha said. There will be task forces and blue ribbon committees and stuff exploring all this. Also: lower-income and many middle-income students would continue to attend free ... and none of the current 900 undergraduates would be charged, per the Times.

Meanwhile, not looking so good now for a rent reduction for the St. Mark's Bookshop, though that matter wasn't mentioned in the articles.

Saddened that Cooper Union is helping to destroy the neighborhood

From the EV Grieve inbox ... reaction from the Cooper Square Committee about Cooper Union's rejection of a rent decrease for St. Mark's Bookshop...

[JVNY]

While Cooper Union's negative decision is a disappointment, the Cooper Square Committee remain committed and vows to increase its efforts to ensure that the St. Marks Bookshop will not become another casualty of the economy. Cooper Union is the landlord for the St Mark's Bookshop.

On Tuesday, October 25, 2011, three separate meetings took place regarding the St. Mark's Bookshop. The bookshop is one of the few remaining independent bookstores in NYC and it is in severe financial crisis. It has requested a rent reduction of $5,000 from the monthly rent of $20,000, which would allow it to continue operating and serving the community.

The first meeting was an impromptu meeting of three representatives of the Cooper Square Committee and Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha, initiated when the Committee delivered 43,630 signed petitions to his office in support of St. Mark's Bookshop.

The second meeting took place later in the day between the owners of St. Mark's Bookshop and T.C. Wescott, a Cooper Union Vice President. During this meeting, it was confirmed that Cooper Union would not agree to a reduction in rent.

The third meeting took place at the bookshop with Jamshed Bharucha and T.C. Wescott shortly after the bookstore owners returned to the bookshop. At this follow-up meeting they reiterated that they could not reduce the $20,000 monthly rent.

Joyce Ravitz, chair of the Cooper Square Committee, a Lower East Side neighborhood preservation organization, notes that Cooper Union originally offered the St. Mark's Bookshop favorable terms on its lease in 1993 as a good will gesture at a time when the Cooper Union's expansion of its dormitories had angered the neighborhood. The rent has since gone to $20,000 with built-in yearly raises.

Property values have skyrocketed in this neighborhood partly because of institutions like theaters and bookshops. We had hoped Cooper Union would play a role in stabilizing and preserving the character of the Lower East Side, and are saddened that it seems to be choosing to help destroy it.

It's ironic that Cooper Union touts its proximity to neighborhood bookstores as one of its attractions.

Meanwhile, Jeremiah Moss has started a petition to boycott any business that moves into the space at 31 Third Avenue should St. Mark's Books be forced to close. You can find the petition here.

As he writes:

Sign the petition if you love St. Mark's Books. Sign it if you just love books. Sign it if you're sick and tired of watching New York City's cultural touchstones go down the toilet day after day. Sign it if you miss the East Village before it became a frat house. Sign it if you don't like the way Cooper Union contributes to real estate overdevelopment in the neighborhood. Sign it if you hate having a bank on every corner and a chain store on every other.

[Updated] Letters about St. Mark's Bookshop; and an uncertain future

From the EV Grieve inbox ... a compilation of letters sent to President Bharucha of The Cooper Union on behalf of St. Mark's Bookshop....

Dear President Bharucha

Like many admirers of the Cooper Union I have been very disturbed by the thought that you may force the St Mark's Bookshop to close by imposing rents on them which they cannot pay. The St Mark's Bookshop is as much a New York institution as the Cooper Union is. I urge you not to make this irreversible cultural mistake.

Please reduce the bookshop rent to $15,000 a month until the economy improves. To destroy one of the city's last, great independent stores for the sake of what to you would be a paltry increase in income would be ... if I may say this as someone who has been proud to appear in the Great Hall on many occasions, and to bring the PEN World Voices Festival there ... unforgivable.

Many of us care about this deeply. Save the St Mark's Bookshop. Please.

With my best wishes,

Salman Rushdie.

Dear President Bharucha:

My father is an artist and taught at Cooper Union in the early 1960s and I have lived in the East Village since 1986. I've been a patron of St. Mark's Bookshop when it was located on St. Mark's Place and then when it moved to its current location. I walk by Cooper Union several times a day, always proud that my family was part of its legacy.

I am surprised and disappointed that a community has had to launch a campaign to urge you to reduce the rent of St. Mark's Bookstore, and to now learn that you are still about to make a decision. You should not have had to think twice about this. It's the right thing to do.

The bookstore is a vital, vibrant part of this community, a community that has changed dramatically over the past two decades. The neighborhood is in danger of becoming just like all the other neighborhoods in New York, beholden to those with deep pockets but sorely lacking the artistic and creative qualities that have made the East Village the most special of places, and that give it literary and artistic value. Surely Cooper Union--dedicated to the arts, architecture and humanities--can understand this. Surely, as an icon in schools promoting the importance of visual thinking, you can understand the power of symbols?

My father and I were dismayed to learn that you will not reduce the bookshop's rent by $5,000 a month during hard economic times. What does Cooper Union stand for? A school that does not charge tuition to its students--one of the best schools in the country in what used to be the most arts-friendly neighborhoods in the nation? Please stay true to your founding values and reduce the rent of this worthy bookstore.


Heidi Boghosian
Avenue A
New York NY

Dear President of Cooper Union,


As a novelist based in downtown Manhattan for thirty years I'm desperately worried by the idea that St. Mark's may be lost because of the high rent imposed by Cooper Union. Surely everything Cooper Union stands for would seem to insist that this unique bookstore must survive. I'm far from alone in saying that from my earliest years as a writer in New York I've largely educated myself by means of what I've found on St Mark's shelves: the classics and contemporary works I knew I needed, and a host of unusual and unexpected works I didn't know I needed, but which proved invaluable for my literary and intellectual development. St Mark's has been both a library and an informal meeting place for decades of my life as a writer here.

To allow St Mark's to die would be a serious blow to the cultural vitality of lower Manhattan. It is no ordinary bookstore, it is that increasingly rare thing, an independent that is perfectly attuned to the tastes and needs of the community it serves. It would be a careless act to let it go under, and it would be a source of real regret for all concerned in years to come. Its loss would be very badly felt. We would all suffer, and more deeply than would the institutional bottom line. This is a special case. Please, I beg you, allow St Mark's to continue to nourish one of the last truly creative communities in Manhattan.

St Mark's Bookstore is a special case.

yours


Patrick McGrath

Dear Mr. President,

In the 1930s, Cooper educated my immigrant great-uncle for free. He went on to create an award-winning invention that revolutionized allied military communications in World War II.

He was the first member of my family to go to college. Now a university professor myself, I am writing to ask Cooper to invest -- once again -- in something of unquestionable value to our world and for our future.

I understand that the cost of operating a university, particularly one of Cooper's famed generosity and caliber, in downtown New York is overwhelming.

However, in the case of St. Mark's -- which helps set and preserve the cultural tone of the Cooper area -- issues of value and cost need to be evaluated from higher perspectives.

The East Village doesn't need another sushi bar or boutique. It doesn't need to follow the fate of Soho and become a suburban mall.

It needs to maintain the high intellectual, cultural, and artistic standards for which it has so long been known -- the standards that draw top students, as they did my great-uncle, to Cooper and NYC: students who will later bring honor back upon Cooper through their contributions.

The loss of St. Mark's -- easily the finest curator and purveyor of intellectual, cultural, and art-and-design volumes in the US, matched only by a few counterparts in Germany and France -- would mean more than few thousand dollars in additional rent it would bring.

Please show the world that Cooper is dedicated to much more than easy profit by making an exception in this one important case and allowing St. Mark's to continue to operate.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Professor S.I. Salamensky
Theater and Performance Studies
UCLA

Meanwhile, last night, Patrick Hedlund at DNAinfo reported that St. Mark’s Bookshop isn’t any closer to having its rent reduced by Cooper Union after a meeting with school officials. Cooper Union offered a deferral of one month’s rent, co-owner Bob Contant said.

Per the article:

“They claim they’re broke and they can’t afford it financially,” said Contant, noting that the school offered the shop a chance to postpone paying a month’s rent to another time over the course of the next seven years left on the lease.

Updated:

Here's the Daily News headline today:

St. Mark's Bookshop not granted rent cut from landlord, faces closure despite community's support

Per the article:

Owners Bob Contant and Terry McCoy found out their bid for a $5,000 rent cut was nixed by landlord Cooper Union in a meeting with T.C. Westcott, a vice president for finance and administration at the arts and engineering school.

"They don't feel they can do anything in terms of the rent," McCoy said. "She started out by telling us that Cooper is really losing a lot of money."

Contant and McCoy meet with Coop President Jamshed Bharucha tomorrow.

[Updated] Why you need to give Jamshed Bharucha a call today

From the EV Grieve inbox...via the Cooper Square Committee

Please contact Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha immediately. President@cooper.edu or (212) 353-4250.

A Board committee is meeting [today] to decide if they will reduce St Mark's Bookshop's $20,000/month rent by $5,000. Thousands of emails or calls will influence the decision.

Tell the President to reduce the bookshop rent to $15,000 a month until the economy improves. You can add any additional comments.

Your support is invaluable.

Updated. Missed these reports from earlier... both Gothamist and Runnin' Scared noted that there wasn't any meeting scheduled today... A Cooper Union spokesperson told Runnin' Scared that the discussions are ongoing and "the outcome will be announced by the end of this month."

New Cooper Union president to be met by song, pleas to save St. Mark's Bookshop

From the EV Grieve inbox...from the Cooper Square Community Development Committee and Businessman’s Association

“A Call to Action! Join us at the Inauguration of Jamshed Bharucha, the incoming President of Cooper Union and Let’s Make our Voices Heard – St. Mark’s Bookshop Must be Saved!”

New York, NY: St. Mark’s Bookshop, one of a few remaining independent bookstores in New York City, is in a state of crisis. It has appealed to their landlord, Cooper Union, to reduce their monthly rent of $20,000 by $5,000 until it is able to recover from the effects of the downturn in the economy. A combination of the difficult economy, the dramatic changes in the publishing industry and the escalating costs of doing business have pushed St. Mark’s Bookshop to the brink. Cooper Union has indicated that it is looking into this matter, but no commitment has yet been made.

On Tuesday, October 18th, at 12 noon, Jamshed Bharucha, will be inaugurated as the new President of Cooper Union. We will be singing and handing out an open letter to invitees as they enter the Great Hall. Let’s raise our voices together in song and ask those in power at Cooper Union to do the right thing and agree to the rent reduction before it’s too late – so that this vital landmark, which serves the diverse community of the Lower East Side, is not forced out of business!

(Sung to the tune of Home on the Range, lyrics by Frances Goldin)

“Oh give me the word
That we long to be heard
That the St. Mark’s Bookshop will be saved.

That you know it’s a gem
With a stroke of your pen
That its’ future’s forever engraved.

LONG LIFE TO ST. MARK’S
IT WILL NOT BE FED TO THE SHARKS
It just needs less rent
And if that’s your intent
You will most likely earn
Real High Marks.

If you need help with the music...

A Cooper Union memo about St. Mark's Bookshop

An anonymous reader left this comment yesterday:

Internal Memo from today.....
To: The Cooper Union Community
From: The Office of Public Affairs
Monday, September 26, 2011

Last week the Board of Trustees discussed the ongoing matter regarding St. Mark’s Bookshop, which we understand many in the Cooper community have been following. We are sharing with you the outcome of that meeting before we inform those outside of The Cooper Union who have expressed interest in the resolution of St. Mark’s request. The Board of The Cooper Union is giving serious consideration to the matter regarding St. Mark's Bookshop. After discussion at its recent meeting, the Board decided to have the situation thoroughly examined by its Finance and Business Affairs committee. The Board believes that the request deserves the committee's analysis, the outcome of which will be announced at the end of October.

This is in line with what the St. Mark's owners told Jeremiah Moss last Friday.

[Updated] Report: St. Mark's Bookshop and Cooper Union to meet again next week

As you know, the owners of St. Mark's Bookshop were to meet yesterday with Theresa C. Westcott, Cooper Union's Vice President of Finance, Adminstration, and Treasury, to negotiate a rent reduction. According to NY1, Westcott will present the issue to Cooper Union's president and trustees. The two sides plan to meet again next week, NY1 reported. "[W]e're optimistic that we can work things out," co-owner Bob Contant said.

Previously.

Updated:

WNYC has a story on the battle too... I don't recall seeing this fact anywhere else:

Cooper Union doesn't actually own the building that holds the store, but leases it from a company called Casabella Holdings, and sublets it to St Mark's. Some of the people signing the petition have accused Cooper Union of being greedy and trying to force St. Marks out of the area.

But Cooper Union is hardly your typical college. It's one of the few in the country that offers all its students full scholarships, each valued at $38,500 a year. The income it generates from its real estate holdings, according to [spokesperson Jolene] Travis, makes up 55 percent of the college's revenue.

Also in the piece!

One real estate analyst, David Nouhian of the Metropolitan Property Group, argues that the most sensible solution would be for St. Mark's to move to a cheaper location, perhaps mid-block.

"That landlord could get a lot more than $20,000 a month in today's market," Nouhian said.

Find the whole report here.

What kind of neighbor will Cooper Union be after today?

As you likely know, the owners of St. Mark's Bookshop will meet today with Theresa C. Westcott, Cooper Union's Vice President of Finance, Adminstration, and Treasury, to negotiate a rent reduction, as Runnin' Scared noted on Monday. Co-owner Bob Contant is aiming for a $5,000/month reduction, but says the new administration has not been "particularly sympathetic." They have struggled to pay the market rate that Cooper Union set at $20,000.

There's plenty of commentary on the matter. Jeremiah Moss writes an Open Letter to Cooper Union today at Vanishing New York. He outlines how Cooper Union has helped usher in "a tsunami of hyper-gentrification," from the Bowery Bar to the glassy hell of 1 Astor Place to the destruction of 35 Cooper Square.

Per Jeremiah:

If St. Mark's Books is forced to close due to unyielding rent, whatever business moves into their space at 31 Third Avenue will be boycotted and protested by the thousands of people who read this blog and all the blogs connected to it. Nothing will thrive there--no bank, no cupcake shop, no kitten adoption center.

Meanwhile, Rob at Save the Lower East Side has more pointed commentary.

Peter Cooper himself was all about giving back to the community. Peter must have long ago tired of spinning in his grave over what has become of his life's dream, free higher education for the working class. How many ways can Cooper Union spell "betrayal"?

He goes on to wonder if the neighborhood even deserves the bookshop.

The NYU students have their own bookstore, filled with all the books they need and more than they can handle. As for the rest of the neighborhood, this place is a youth destination for children of means, not an intellectual or countercultural destination anymore. It's heart is commerce now, not anarchy. Freedom must be purchased, and it exacts many prices.

And you know about the petition to save St. Mark's Bookshop. It's here.

Meanwhile, there was a robust discussion on the topic on the last EVG post here.

[Photo via John Roca the Daily News. Read their article here.]

Cooper Union's plan to remake Astor Place — and the East Village

In case you haven't read it yet, head on over to Jeremiah's Vanishing New York for his take on Cooper Union's plan for Astor Place — and the East Village.

An excerpt!

The redesign of Astor Place is part of the Bloomberg program to remake the East Village into a haven for the upper classes and safety-seeking suburbanites. When considering what's about to happen to Astor Place, we must look beyond the pretty green trees to the motivations behind the plan. Why is it really being done and for whom? Who will benefit the most from it? What will the East Village lose in the long run?

Read the post here.

Previously on EV Grieve:
East Village — the new Midtown?

[Updated] Cooper Union is now a hotel — for at least a day

EV Grieve reader @MaryTom asks a perfectly reasonable question via Twitter: "Did I miss something? When did this Cooper Union bldg become Hotel Withrow? Movie set?"

(OK, that's two questions...)

Probably a movie or TV set. We stopped paying attention to film shoots of late. Since there seemed to be one on every other block. Or so it seemed. Or maybe Cooper Union officials feel as if there aren't enough hotels around here...

Updated:

As a reader pointed out... It is a shoot for "White Collar."

And will the Flaming Cactus get any TV time?

Benefit for Emilie Louise Gossiaux today at Cooper Union

Last Oct. 8, Emilie Louise Gossiaux, a student at Cooper Union, was struck by an 18-wheeler while riding her bike in Brooklyn. In addition to stroke, traumatic brain injury and resuscitated cardiac arrest, she suffered multiple fractures in her head, pelvis, and left leg. She emerged from the ER in severely critical condition with a pessimistic assessment of her brain function. A “grim” prognosis was made of her chance for survival.

You can read more about her tragic story here.
Emilie is currently in a neurorehabilitation program at the Rusk Institute.

Today from 2-6 in the Houghton Gallery (2nd floor of the Foundation Building at 7 E. Seventh St.) at Cooper Union, the School of Art and the Student Council are hosting an auction and sale of original artwork donated by the Cooper art family of staff, faculty and students to raise money for Emilie's rehabilitation. More than 100 works have been donated to this event — some will be auctioned and some will be available as cash-and-carry.

And I apologize for not posting this information sooner for people making plans...

Cafe/preschool coming to Cooper Union

Interesting combo...

Cooper Union is green

Crain's has the good news about Cooper Union's achievement:

The East Village-based school's new building at 41 Cooper Square has become the city's first academic structure to earn the U.S. Green Building Council's highest honor: LEED Platinum certification.

Meanwhile, here to dampen our spirits per usual, EV Heave thinks they celebrated with some Pavement Pizza.

Taras Shevchenko Place and Hall Place

An EV Grieve reader noted that Taras Shevchenko Place, which runs alongside St. George's Ukrainian Church and the Cooper Union between Seventh Street and Sixth Street, has another name: Hall Place. Well, yes the Hall Place sign is new.



Back in 2001, Cooper Union officials had proposed de-mapping Taras Shevchenko Place, named for the Ukrainian poet, artist and activist. De-mapping would "remove the street from existence in all official matters, and from all official documents."

I lost track of that story... looks like Hall Place is sharing an existence with it for now.

According to Forgotten New York, City Council changed the name of Hall Place to Taras Shevchenko Place in 1978.

And who or what is Hall?

Per the Times from January 1999:

The street that now carries the name of Shevchenko, Ukraine's ''freedom symbol,'' was first known as Hall Street and then as Hall Place, after Charles Henry Hall, a Harlem landowner who sold the property to the city on Dec. 23, 1828.