CUMC May Pave Scientific Future in Manhattanville

As the construction of Columbia’s campus in Manhattanville approaches, the University’s Medical Center is anticipating that the project will relieve space issues while acting as a cornerstone of the institution’s future.

With its cramped campus in vibrant Washington Heights, CUMC has placed particular emphasis on acquiring more space since the 2006 inauguration of Dean of the Faculties of Health Science and Medicine Lee Goldman. New infrastructure through expansion would greatly benefit CUMC, which is both the first academic medical center in the world and the oldest combined hospital-and-university structure on the east coast.

The centerpiece of the first phase of the expansion is the Jerome Greene Science Center to be built on 129th Street and to feature researchers from neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, and engineering fields. Administrators say the building, described as the intellectual home of the University’s Mind, Brain and Behavior initiative, will serve as a springboard for the second phase of the expansion, which is at least a decade away.

“Planning the Mind, Brain, and Behavior program is really a starting place for us to understand interdisciplinary opportunities between natural sciences and basic health sciences,” said Lisa Hogarty, chief operating officer of CUMC. “The real test for us will be how we collaborate in the next 50 years.”

Built in 1928 where the New York Highlanders once played Major League Baseball, the campus consists of structures which, according to Hogarty, “are old and reaching the end of their lives.

“We’re not as likely to invest major capital dollars into them,” Hogarty said.
Manhattanville’s location and its proximity to the Morningside campus should be major advantages to CUMC.

“The Broadway corridor allows us such an opportunity compared to other research facilities in the city and in the tri-state area,” Hogarty said. “NYU, for example, is all over the map. Having a contiguous channel from 116th to 168th Street makes it so manageable.”

But such a passageway won’t form for quite some time. Senior Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin said that aside from preparing for the MBB Center and moving about 700 Columbia employees to Studebaker Hall on 132nd Street late last year, administrators have not developed a full plan for the Manhattanville campus, due to the unpredictability of scientific research.

“This is a project that’s going to unfold for several decades, and we [only] know what Phase One looks like,” Kasdin said, adding that details more than 10 years from now are still up in the air.

“Science today is moving so quickly,” Kasdin said. “It would have been a mistake ... if we start saying what the site, which will be built in 20 years, is going to be used for.”
Regardless of the final shape that Columbia’s expansion takes, community protest has been a constant surrounding the project so far.

“There is no question that Columbia’s current expansion ambitions would have a tremendous impact on the community reaching up to the 168th street hospital,” West Harlem resident Mario Mazzoni said.

“In Hamilton Heights and Washington Heights [unlike in Morningside Heights], there is a massive disparity between the average student or faculty member and the average longtime resident of these communities,” Mazzoni said. “As a critical mass of Columbia-affiliated people begin to seek housing in the surrounding areas, other upper-income people not affiliated with Columbia will also be drawn to the area, and it will be impossible for longtime residents to compete for housing.”

While many opponents agree that Columbia requires more space to continue its endeavors, much of the resistance focuses on how it intends to do so.

“Labs and science buildings will have a good impact for the University. However, the University can achieve the same impact with a more sustainable and accountable plan,” said Victoria Ruiz, CC ’09 and a member of the Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification. “The buildings will impact the current area by displacing over 5000 people, tearing down historic buildings, and destroying a significant part of West Harlem socially and physically.”

Referring to West Harlem, Hogarty said that rapid gentrification is not tied to Columbia. “The market has been incredibly robust for around the last 15 years,” she said.
CUMC sees obtaining more space as absolutely vital to continuing its success in the future.

“For the Medical Center in particular, ... we need to bring the best scientists to Columbia,” Hogarty said. “In 20 years, we should have grown as much as we can in Washington Heights and have large state-of-the-art research buildings in Manhattanville.”

sandeep.soman@columbiaspectator.com