Sara Vogel

Those opposing 125th Street rezoning have a new advocate. But even with civil rights attorney Norman Siegel at the helm, the Harlem-based Voice of the Everyday People still faces an uphill battle.

A neighborhood fixture since 1975, Academy Hardware will be relocating to Yonkers from its storefront between 111th and 112th Streets around Christmastime.

Council member Inez Dickens, D-Harlem and Morningside Heights, was fined $2,657 Thursday when the Campaign Finance Board found she had committed fundraising and spending indiscretions during her 2005 campaign.

As tenants begin to move in to the new Extell Development Corporation high rise towers between 100th and 99th streets on Broadway, the realtors hired to fill the storefronts have also begun publicizing their search for tenants.

Otto Leuschel, the bespectacled and casually dressed representative for Whole Foods Market, was sweating under the harsh florescent lights of the cafeteria at P.S. 163 on Amsterdam Avenue and 97th Street one evening early this summer.

Construction at Columbus Avenue between 97th and 100th Streets continues to rattle windows and ruffle its neighbors’ feathers this week after city inspectors lifted an order that stopped some of the work in late July when a retaining wall at the site collapsed.

Neighborhood groups are only three weeks away from final passage of a resolution two years in the making that would restrict how tall new buildings can climb on the Upper West Side.

A proposal to rezone the Upper West Side is one step closer to changing the rules that tell developers how tall they can build from 97th to 110th Streets.

Playwright and MacArthur Genius Anna Deavere Smith portrayed several prominent Barnard alumnae during her keynote address to the Barnard College class of 2007 at Commencement ceremonies on Tuesday.

Ben Siegelman, CC '07, has many accomplishments under his belt from his time at Columbia.

Legislators pumped billions in increased funding into New York City public schools this year, setting the stage for major state reforms and another overhaul of the city system.

Several lawmakers in the Hispanic caucus of the State Assembly introduced a bill on April 27 that would divert millions in funds away from New York's private colleges and universities and toward SUNY and CUNY public schools.

The New York State Senate passed a bill Wednesday to forbid college financial aid advisers from accepting gifts and maintaining other financial ties with student loan companies.

David Jones, president of the Community Service Society, gave a stern warning to the academics, public policy-makers, and students assembled at the School of International and Public Affairs on Monday.

The New York state legislature was only a few hours late in signing this year's budget into law-breaking the two-year streak of budgets passed before the April 1st deadline, but only ceremonially.

More press than protesters clustered by the 116th Street Columbia gates on Broadway Wednesday to rally against what they called the "light punishment" Columbia issued to the eight students who rushed the stage during a speech by Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist.

Council member Inez Dickens, D-Harlem, returned Wednesday from a trip to Northern Ireland, where she met with representatives of the political parties brokering the peace process there.

Charges of misconduct against two members of the union representing Columbia Facilities employees were dropped Thursday.

In the face of opposition from neighborhood residents, Columbia backed down on a plan to move Health Services to McVickar Hall on 113th Street. The building will instead house the Office of University Development and Alumni Relations.

Shops that sell fake IDs are the target of a new City Council bill passed Wednesday which will make it easier for cops to shut down establishments found to house fake ID makers.

Newbie State Senator Bill Perkins knows how to get and keep political supporters.

Harlem, was one of four black community leaders honored at an event hosted on Tuesday by the office of borough president Scott Stringer to commemorate Black History Month.

Assemblyman Keith Wright, D-Harlem, and State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, D-Brooklyn, will introduce City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's plan for a $300 tax credit for middle- and low-income renters into the state legislature, according to a council spokesperson.

The Three Parks Independent Democrats voted in new club officers and board members at their meeting on Wednesday.

ALBANY, N.Y., Feb. 13-Seven Columbia and Barnard students and several administrators were bussed up to Albany to lobby for state financial aid increases on Tuesday.

ALBANY, N.Y., Feb. 13-Seven Columbia and Barnard students and several administrators were bussed up to Albany to lobby for state financial aid increases on Tuesday.

The City Council began examining Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $57.1 billion budget plan this week and is initiating hearings to question, amend, and debate the mayor's proposal before the package is finalized in June.

Governor Eliot Spitzer introduced a $120.7 billion budget plan last Wednesday, complete with increased funding for education, an expansion of the state's child health care program, and reforms for making allocation of funds more transparent.

Jimmy Dahroug, GS '03, hopes that the third time he runs for State Senate on Long Island will be the charm. With just under two years until Election Day 2008, Dahroug said that he has already begun fundraising for his third campaign to beat 33-year-old incumbent Caesar Trunzo, R-Brentwood.

Mayors and government officials from Düsseldorf to Beijing gathered Thursday morning at Low Library to kick off a two-day-long summit on the challenges of urban diversity with Mayor Michael Bloomberg as key-note speaker.

The city council recently wrapped up its first year-a year that many say helped city government inch toward transparency-under Speaker Christine Quinn, D-Chelsea.

Self-proclaimed "new kid on the block" state Sen. Bill Perkins, D-Harlem, was appointed to seven committees by Senate leaders Tuesday.

Thousands of James Brown fans from around the world-and around the block-formed lines four to five people deep around the Apollo Theater in Harlem on Dec. 28 to view the body of the Godfather of Soul during an open-casket memorial ceremony that lasted all day and into the night.

A construction worker died and two others were injured when the top floors of a five-story gutted apartment building on W. 113th Street collapsed, trapping the men under debris at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Firefighters pulled the two survivors from the rubble and brought them to St.

When Eliot Spitzer was sworn in as New York's new governor on Jan. 1, Morningside Heights and Harlem residents said they would not let him forget his campaign promise that "everything changes on day one," even after day one had passed.

Common themes-education reform, health care reform, and affordable housing-run through the concerns of local residents, and many said they would be closely watching Spitzer's actions during the beginning of his term for results.

Esther Holiday was 18-years-old in 1956 when James Brown first strutted across the stage at the Apollo Theater on 125th Street in Harlem.

A construction worker died and two others were injured when the top floors of a 5-story gutted apartment building on West 113th Street collapsed at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Neuroscience major Emily Lowry, BC '07, chose Barnard over research powerhouses the University of California at Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University because she was offered one of six slots in the Centennial Scholars program for her year.

Each year, Barnard's Centennial Scholars program-founded in 1984, making it the oldest of its kind at Columbia-accepts 10 to 16 students, half during admissions and half during the first year.

The Dermot Company purchased 11 buildings on Amsterdam Avenue, 122nd, and 123rd Streets-which include the storefronts of restaurants Kitchenette and Max Soha-for $37 million from real estate giant Extell Development Corporation in mid-November. The buildings contain 145 apartment units.

The state must increase annual funding to New York City public schools by $1.93 billion, a ruling from the New York State Court of Appeals ordered Monday.

There were few surprises for New York City voters who watched local election results trickle in on Tuesday night.

Anyone with a dream and 15,000 signatures can run for governor of New York. But many say that gubernatorial candidates not tied to one of the two major parties also need a prayer.

Strategists for the party say they expect to gain at least one or two seats this November and think they have an even better shot at bridging the four-seat gap between Democrats and Republicans in 2008.

The odd jobs that Jimmy Dahroug, GS '03, took up during college have prepared him well for his current position: Democratic candidate for New York Senate.

Legalizing marijuana, lifting the ban on smoking in restaurants, and abolishing Social Security and Medicare would be among the first orders of business for Libertarian party gubernatorial candidate John Clifton

Long-time tenants of 515 W. 110th St. say their building is starting to feel less like the "family" building they remember from years past and more like a dorm­-and they blame their landlord.

Everything went as expected at the primary polls on Tuesday, as the people of New York selected Republican and Democratic contenders for November's general elections.

For Democratic voters in Morningside Heights, Harlem, and the Upper West Side, there are few races to deliberate this year. Today, residents will find many candidates running unopposed or against candidates with less money and name recognition.

Columbia students will still have to lodge their parents and friends downtown when they come to town.

Plans to build a Marriott hotel on 125th Street-the first hotel slated for construction in Harlem in 40 years­­-quietly dissolved this August, leaving the site as vacant as it was before the project's 2003 groundbreaking ceremony.

Most urbanites will admit there's no better place to discover New York City characters than on a subway or bus, bound for somewhere.

Members of the Coalition to Preserve Community, the group responsible for the anti-expansion rally on Low Plaza last May, joined hundreds of tenants and supporters in a march from the tip of Manhattanville to Inwood to protest evictions of rent-stabilized tenants by large city land owners.

The fate of same-sex marriage in New York state is in the hands of six Court of Appeals judges, who will decide based on arguments presented Wednesday whether the state's law defining marriage as between a man and a woman is constitutional.

If the plaintiffs, 44 same-sex couples, win the case in the state's highest court, New York will become the second state after Massachusetts to legalize gay marriage.

Governor George Pataki (R-N.Y.), Law '70, addressed the 721 members of the Columbia Law School class of 2006 on South Lawn Thursday afternoon. Beginning his remarks by recalling memories of student riots and 10-cent beers at the Golden Rail bar on 110th Street, Pataki jokingly said he was a Columbia law student of a different era and that his experience as a legislator and politician made him "completely unqualified" to deliver the "insightful analysis" of the legal system expected of him for the occasion.