CPC Activists Protest Outside Columbia Gates

For local activists picketing at the Columbia gates Monday afternoon, the shouts into the misty air were more than just noise.

After the rain cleared, Tom DeMott, CC ’80, led members of the Coalition to Preserve Community—a local group created in opposition to Columbia’s approach to its Manhattanville expansion—and other local residents in a march against the way the expansion plan is being executed. Colorful signs in hand, they shouted their usual refrain, “Harlem: Not for Sale!” and a new chant, “Columbia: Blood Sucker, Vampire!”

The group of about 40 people included several familiar faces of the local movement in opposition to the University’s approach to development in Manhattanville. Among those present were Tuck-It-Away’s Nick Sprayregen, the largest private property owner in the expansion footprint, and his lawyer, 2009 Public Advocate candidate Norman Siegel, who filed a lawsuit over Columbia’s construction plans last week.

After about 45 minutes of picketing, protestor Ahmad Shirazi of 100th Street, who has lived in the neighborhood for the past 44 years, got into a verbal scuffle with a police officer. Shirazi wanted to step outside the designated picketing area, but the officer told him he would be blocking pedestrians. Siegel, former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, came to Shirazi’s defense.

“I don’t need your permission to walk on my sidewalk!” Shirazi shouted at the officer.

Later, Shirazi lamented the way the police had “basically penned us in.” He joined Monday’s protest because he believes the University’s actions undermine the welfare of the area and that the relationship between Columbia and locals has deteriorated over the past few decades.

“Under regular circumstances, Columbia would be evicted for being a horrible, horrible neighbor,” Shirazi said.

But one man in a black coat and hat stood apart from the crowd as a voice of dissent among the dissenters. Ricardo Yarwood, CC ’50, said simply, “They [CPC] asked me to come.” Yarwood was on a CPC contact list, so he went to the organizational meeting for the demonstration and came on Monday, since he said he attends everything he is invited to. Yet he didn’t march with the picketing activists and said he was not swayed by their arguments.

Yarwood, who has lived in and around Columbia and Harlem for over half a century, said the University serves the best interests of the neighborhood even more so today than in previous years. He also questioned why CPC members were calling on people to “Save Harlem” when he believes “there’s nothing there to preserve” in Manhattanville, an area occupied primarily by small-scale industries and storage.

Yarwood also questioned what plans the activists had in mind as alternatives to Columbia’s plans.

“If you are going to be against something, you’ve got to be for something,” he said. “Otherwise it [protest] is just noise.”

DeMott’s four-year-old nephew, Ben—who wore a dinosaur hat as he joined in the march on his father’s shoulders—echoed Yarwood’s sentiment, albeit with different implications.

“I want to hear Tommy’s speech,” he said. “I just keep hearing noises.”

betsy.morais@columbiaspectator.com