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December 21, 2007
Despite Earlier Defiance, Holdouts in Columbia’s Expansion Zone Are Down to 3
The NY Times
By Timothy Williams
An article about the holdouts property-rights superheroes in West Harlem.
When Columbia University began buying property north of its Morningside Heights campus for its planned expansion a few years ago, a group of longtime business owners formed an alliance and pledged never to sell.
Now, three years later, all but two of the six family-owned firms in the alliance, the West Harlem Business Group, have sold their property to the university, leaving the two owners increasingly edgy about what might happen next, as Columbia prepares to start the largest expansion in its history.
Those two businesses — both moving and storage concerns — along with the owner of two service stations who was not in the alliance, are the only remaining holdouts in the Manhattanville neighborhood. More than three dozen others — meat wholesale companies, auto body shops, restaurants, construction supply stores, tire repair shops, warehouses and a window manufacturer among them — have sold their property to Columbia and have agreed to leave once construction begins.
NoLandGrab: It's very typical in a contentious eminent domain battle that most property owners who vow not to sell, eventually do. What's amazing is that a full third remain.
During the past couple years the Times earned a reputation of being "allergic" to writing about eminent domain in NYC ("Achoo!"). Can we finally expect a story on the Brooklyn eminent domain superheroes, or is putting their business partner Bruce Ratner on the spot taboo?
Posted by lumi at December 21, 2007 7:18 PM