12th Street's field of barbed wire

Speaking of NYU's 12th Street Residence Hall... Have you noticed all the barbed wire on the fence that protects the parking lot just to the west of the dorm? What is this, Sing Sing?




However, when the dorm went up, most of the rest of the barbed wire was removed... easy enough now to jump over the fence... making what remains look rather ridiculous.



Though, for the record, I do like barbed wire. And Barb Wire. And you pretty much knew that I was going to do this.

NYU looking to run Greenwich Village out of town

[Image via NY Post]

"It's the purple octopus that ate Greenwich Village! New York University plans to add 6 million square feet of space by 2031 -- development that may include a 40-story residential tower, the tallest in the Village." (New York Post)

The purple octopus? Hmm. Not bad. How about:

New name for NYU?

Making another run at the Border

Border Burrito on Third Avenue was closed this entire NYU school year...




In recent weeks workers are busy inside...perhaps to have it ready to go for when the NYUsters return this August...



Meanwhile, is the sidewalk out front between 11th Street and 12th Street getting ready for scaffolding?

Lower rents mean more NYU students will soon be your neighbors

As the Washington Square News reports, "The cost to live in many NYU dorms will increase next year — and at the same time, rental prices around the city are dropping rapidly."

The article goes on to discuss the Real Estate Group’s Manhattan Rental Market Report. And what does all this mean...? Simple. Let's go back to the article.

Because of lowered prices, more students have begun to use the Off-Campus Housing Office’s housing registry to look for apartments or a roommate.

“Many students are doing more comparative shopping and are evaluating the benefits of off-campus housing versus on-campus housing,” said Jennifer Brown, assistant vice president of Housing and Strategic Planning. “Most notable in the outside market is the increase in availability of the smaller types of accommodations such as studios and one-bedroom apartments.”

Despite fees such as security deposits and utilities, many students still find it beneficial to move off campus.

“I’m going abroad, but when I get back, I’m moving off-campus, hopefully the East Village, because you can find comparable prices to NYU,” CAS junior Joe Haldeman said. “If you can get the same price for something you would have to share at NYU, why not?”

Why not? Hmm. We must start a list...

Code name Narnia: NYU frosh have secret room where they can drink, smoke pot and have sex (reportedly)

Washington Square News has the story:

Within the walls of one freshman dorm exists a magical place, known to most first-year students only as “Narnia.” Narnia’s mythical reputation as a refuge in which students sip beer and smoke marijuana without RA interference has spread like wildfire throughout the freshman class.

Indeed, the rumors are based on truth. The party never stops in Narnia: nearly every day of every week, four suitemates invite friends and strangers alike to celebrate life with sex, music, alcohol and weed.

Narnia is actually an eight-by-four-foot room in a spacious suite. The room is clean and uncluttered with a bedsheet spread across the floor. Photographs and hand-drawn illustrations adorn the sanctuary’s walls, and lava lamps, ashtrays and a defunct popcorn maker sit near a small window. A large poster of “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” rests on the room’s center wall.

Well, it was probably fun while it lasted. And has anyone checked John Sexton's blood pressure lately?

Before heading to Pa., John Penley leaves his photography collection to archenemy NYU; still annoyed by NYU students

You may have heard the rumblings since last fall that "Slacktivist" leader John Penley was moving away from the neighborhood for the wilds of Erie, Pa. It is true...and today's Washington Square News has a feature on Penley, who's giving his extensive photo collection to the NYU Tamiment Library. (Scoopy reported this last month -- Runnin' Scared had the news back in October.)

To the article!

Penley made a name for himself documenting the turmoil of life on the Lower East Side and protesting big business, including NYU expansion, through the last decades of the 20th century.

“This one is my favorite,” Penley laughed, holding a Daily News front cover photograph he took after he discovered locals were growing marijuana plants in Tompkins Square Park.

“It was obvious. I mean, I know what pot plants look like,” Penley said. After Penley called the Daily News, a reporter from the paper went to the scene and brought a leaf of the plant to a professor at NYU who confirmed it was, in fact, marijuana.

Penley started taking photographs as a journalist in Nicaragua in 1983 when he covered the Contra War and continued to document life in the Village until about six years ago.

“I quit. I got completely burnt out. You know, it’s a very hard way to make a living. I was arrested multiple times,” he said. “I got tired of looking at stuff like fires and car wrecks.”

The activist will move away from the Village to live in Pennsylvania next month where he plans to deejay at his friend’s bar and ice fish in his spare time.

“To be honest with you, I’m really sick of the [Village]. The people who would generate creative things there have been forced to leave the neighborhood,” he said.

Hordes of NYU students only add to Penley’s annoyances with the comparatively bland flavor of the area has taken on in recent years.

“I think it was irresponsible to dump that many students on the Lower East Side without educating them about how to behave in our neighborhood,” he said.

Meanwhile, who will step up to become, as the Post famously described Penley last July 31, "New York City's cuddliest anarchist"? No one, of course!

Previous John Penley coverage on EV Grieve here.

[Photo for WSN by Arielle Milkman]

Met Food lives

Good news from Scoopy's Notebook this week: "Met Food supermarket on Second Ave. and New York University have finally settled on a lease that will allow the market to keep serving the East Village customers who depend upon it and championed its cause so fiercely." (The Villager)



Now, perhaps, can they take down the sale sign for clam shell salads? I took this photo Aug. 30. And the sign was still up the last time I walked by...

Another view of the coming recession

Last Tuesday, Jeremiah had a post with a photo of "the recession" graffiti at the "coming soon" Capital One branch on 8th Street and University. Meanwhile, I just saw the front page of last Friday's Washington Square News:



I really like this shot by WSN photog Ben Norman. Perhaps this will be one of the iconic images of this time in NYC...

Noted

NYU was recently ranked 15th by Global Language Monitor as one of the most mentioned universities in print and electronic media, beating out the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University and Georgetown University, among others. The study measures university appearance through every accessible database, including print, electronic media and the blogosphere.
Columbia University, however, snagged the number two spot in the study.

(Washington Square News)

Articles that I decided not to read

From NYU's student newspaper, Washington Square News.

The following photos are presented without comment

Move-in day for some NYU students. At 11th Street and Third Avenue. Sunday morning.

EV Grieve: Figure of the day

The total cost of tuition (including room and board) at NYU starting this fall: $50,182

Increase over last year: 5.9 percent

Increase in the past decade: 65 percent

[Washington Square News via Gothamist. Image via Althouse.]

P.S.
From The Villager, April 2-8, 2008, "E. Village food fight pits N.Y.U. vs. grocery":
Another neighbor, David Mallius, said, “Talking about market rate, in this neighborhood market rate is determined by NYU.” He noted how high-rise dorms change the character of a neighborhood and how hordes of students provide the market for bars that are overwhelming the neighborhood.

Unless it's a live-action American Apparel ad

I often see NYU students returning to the dorms after a night of what-not during my early-morning walks in the neighborhood on weekends. Kids these days! I was being a little creepy and snapped this picture a few Sundays ago. (Forgot about the photo until this morning.) I can say with some certainty that -- aside from some kind of scant undergarments -- these young women weren't wearing anything under their coats. Surprise! Surprise! Indeed.