The devotion of John B. Pine

John Locke imagined a golden-age past in which the fruits of the earth vastly exceeded our ability to consume them. “No body could think himself injured by the drinking of another man” when there remained “a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst,” Locke mused. But eventually, population and private wealth made England into a much more complicated place. Inevitably, man exceeded his terrestrial resources.

So it was in the summer of 1891. At the time, Columbia was seen as a conservative institution, “a sleepy little place” all in Gothic architecture. University trustees’ children preferred Harvard or Yale. The “New York Recorder” declared Princeton, Cornell, and UVA better known. Columbia’s constituent schools and faculties existed in loose association rather than as parts of a cohesive whole. Worst of all, the University’s site on 49th Street was near a noisy train and was far too small for the growing institution’s needs.

Columbia would have to move. John B. Pine, CC 1877, L 1879, and clerk of the Board of Trustees, identified the Bloomingdale Asylum’s pastoral grounds uptown as an ideal site. But for Low, Pine, and their associates, it would be an uphill battle. Columbia’s wealth didn’t approach the $2 million price, and Low’s energetic fundraising disappointed expectations. To make matters worse, in March 1892, State Sen. George Washington Plunkitt introduced a bill for the construction of 119th Street between Amsterdam and Broadway—right through Columbia’s new land.

The present situation is shot through with parallels. While our peer institutions snap up research buildings and plan massive new complexes, student groups and faculty at Columbia struggle for space. Expansion is as necessary as it was a century ago. But Locke’s England has spread across New York. No longer do open fields beckon the institution’s use—we are pressed up against our neighbors and cannot grow without imposing upon them.

Thus Columbia has once again run into a government obstacle. This time, it comes in the form of a ruling of the New York State Supreme Court blocking Columbia’s efforts to acquire two businesses in Manhattanville through the policy of eminent domain, which allows the government to compel owners of land to sell in deference to the public interest.

Perhaps the court was right to rule that way. John Locke, after all, envisioned a government whose first responsibility would be the defense of property rights. In describing his vision, however, Locke recognized that enjoying the government’s defense meant giving up a measure of liberty. No more could man do as he pleased—laws would constrict his agency. A degree of fealty to the state, whose laws preserve the common good, preempts our individualist desires.

I grimly accept that eminent domain places a burden on the owners of the two businesses in question. I acknowledge, with heavy heart, that the planned expansion will require the limited residential population of Columbia-owned apartment buildings in Manhattanville to move. While I would point out Columbia’s commitment to facilitating their relocation, in part through the construction of a new apartment building, I do not pretend that the tenants will not face difficulties. Yet we, and the court, must recognize that the matter at hand has effects that extend far beyond this time and this place.
Plunkitt’s challenge inspired a surprising institutional unity. An alumni petition to the mayor yielded 5,000 signatures. With the help of Mayor Grant, himself a graduate of the Law School, Low convinced Plunkitt to move the proposed street one block north.

Even as it prepared for its move, however, Columbia’s finances were far from settled. For some time, the University would have to work out of what few buildings it could afford to construct. Nevertheless, Low urged careful planning for the future. “It may be many years before the whole plot is covered in buildings,” he cautioned, and “perhaps the final buildings in our plan may not be erected for a hundred years.” 117 years later, the final building of the Morningside plan remains under construction. Seth Low is no longer University president. Indeed, the library that bears his name is no longer a library. The politicians and academics, philanthropists and schemers of his day are, like Low himself, gone. Columbia survives. In 100 years, we too will be lost and mostly forgotten. Whether Columbia stands then will depend on whether we, like Low, can secure its future. The fealty of the court must be to the public good. I would argue that the preservation of this institution directly serves that good, but I defer on the question to the wiser and the better informed. We owe our allegiance to Columbia University.

John Pine died in 1922 after sitting 32 years on the Board of Directors. He had never been compensated for his service. There is no Pine Hall in Morningside today. But he did have the good sense to pass away during the tenure of the redoubtable Nicholas Murray Butler, who brought his full grandiose eloquence to bear on the occasion. “It may be doubted whether in all the long history of Columbia any of her sons has loved her more ardently,” Butler wrote, “or has served her with more tireless devotion.”

The author is a Columbia College sophomore.

Tags: Opinion, Samuel Roth, Joanna Wang, Eminent Domain, Low, Manhattanville