Columbia University’s expansion into West Harlem is under fire – and rightfully so – because the ugly side of gentrification has rapidly forced out businesses and low-income people of color in the name of progress. The grassroots protests in Harlem against the “land grab” raise thorny questions about whose interests were really served in the seizure of properties through eminent domain.
The plain fact is that Columbia’s 17-acre expansion has dramatically changed the neighborhood’s demographics and disproportionately inflicted economic hardship on low-income Black and Latinx Harlemites. In return, Columbia has failed to release but a fraction of the $76 million in “community benefits” grants and other in-kind assistance brokered by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg to appease protests ahead of construction of the Manhattanville campus.
Columbia has released a statement stating that the Manhattanville project has “benefitted from the strong support” of elected officials and residents. “We are exceedingly proud of the successes of this project to date and grateful for these partnerships,” the statement said, emphasizing employment, affordable housing and economic opportunities.
The demographic changes in West Harlem have been dramatic. Community District 9, which encompasses West Harlem, has lost about 14 percent of its Black population (3,800 residents) and 10 percent of its Latinx population (4,500 residents) between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, according to an analysis by my organization, the Community Service Society of New York. The exodus was followed by an influx of Asian and White residents with incomes above $200,000 moving into the district, the study found. In addition, there was a nearly 6,000-unit decline in rent-controlled apartments in 2022 and high eviction rates in 2017 in the part of Harlem near the campus expansion.
Harlem State Senator Cordell Cleare has proposed legislation that would give the protests teeth. It would immediately halt Columbia’s expansion by repealing its West Harlem development plan, which among other things gave state authorization in 2008 to use eminent domain to acquire and develop “blighted” properties. Senator Cleare has said the repeal would be a formal step toward revoking Columbia’s acquisition of some West Harlem real estate.
I take no joy in asking this question, but ask it we must, because Harlem deserves an answer: Is there proof that one of the nation’s best-known Ivy League college’s motives for expanding its campus was less than pure? Clear-cut evidence of racial animus on the part of Columbia could give legs to the community’s concerns.
According to a Feb. 2024 letter to Columbia University from the NY Interfaith Commission for Housing Equality, the expansion was tainted from the start by discriminatory motives by the school. In 1945, the letter asserts, Murray Butler, former president of Columbia University, publicly warned of the “dangers from the north” and “urged the university to purchase as many East Harlem properties as possible” to block Black and Latinx residents from migrating toward the main Morningside Heights campus.
In 2002, former university President Lee Bollinger called for the campus expansion in his inaugural address, triggering years of aggressive push back in Harlem. Phase 1 of the construction, The Forum, opened in 2018. The next year, the Jerome L. Greene Science Center and the Lenfest Center for the Arts opened, and David Geffen and Henry R. Kravis Halls — now home to the Business School — opened in early 2022. Phase 2 of the expansion, set to open in 2030, would push the campus to 134th Street between Broadway and 12th Avenue. The move into that section of uptown has activists voicing concerns about gentrification befalling Washington Heights.
Senator Cleare’s legislation and the Interfaith Commission’s letter represent an attempt to follow the script created by Black activists in Manhattan Beach, California. Last year, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a landmark law that returned a picturesque stretch of shoreline to the Black family whose property was seized by eminent domain in 1924. That case has sparked a national conversation about reversing discriminatory use of eminent domain powers.
The activists’ strategy – filing lawsuits, providing evidence of past discrimination and pressuring legislatures to take actions that clear the way – has drawn the attention of housing and civil rights advocates. Similar cases are in the early fact-gathering stages in Minneapolis, Cleveland, Seattle and Boston. They are motivated by the condition of Black Americans, who are far less likely than Whites to own land, homes and the generational wealth that goes with them. It’s a situation that has shown little sign of improvement.
Columbia’s West Harlem expansion may be difficult to press to a conclusion like the case in California, where the family was attacked by the Ku Klux Klan and local officials used eminent domain as a last resort to kick them out. However, Columbia’s politically powerful and astute board must understand the reputational risk they face.
Harlem activists must continue to press forward. They have leverage to force change in Columbia’s development plans. The last thing the university wants is its name at the forefront of a new, national racial reckoning about how to correct past real-estate development wrongs.
David R. Jones, Esq., is President and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), the leading voice on behalf of low-income New Yorkers for more than 175 years. The views expressed in this column are solely those of the writer. The Urban Agenda is available on CSS’s website: www.cssny.org.