As Columbia continues to restrict public access to its Morningside Heights campus, hundreds of community members have signed a petition demanding that the University reopen the gates to the public.

For Edafe Okporo, moving to Harlem after emigrating from Nigeria in 2016 felt like coming “into the Renaissance”—a feeling that stuck with him for each trip he would take to 126th Street, where he founded a first of its kind shelter for asylum seekers in 2020.

When Zahra Kazemi moved to the United States a year and a half ago, leaving her home in Iran behind, she and her daughter were welcomed in by a close-knit community at P.S. 36 Margaret Douglas, an elementary school in Morningside Heights. There, Kazemi has quickly become a leader and friend among several parents, currently serving as the school’s Parent Association president. Similarly, her daughter has formed close bonds with classmates she said she would miss if she left.

Before becoming a faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege, Elizabeth Gartman tutored for two years as she completed her master’s degree at the school. While Gartman described teaching at her alma mater as a beloved experience, Jan. 11 was her last day as an instructor. She cited inadequate pay and a stalled contract renegotiation process as reasons for her departure.

After nearly seven years of inactivity, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Friends of Morningside Park, and Columbia University officially reactivated the Morningside Park waterfall on Friday morning. The organizations have been collaborating over the past year to repair the park’s beloved feature.

Following reports that Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted after months of an intensifying federal probe into his administration, District 7 City Council member Shaun Abreu, CC ’14, called on Adams to resign in a Thursday morning statement on X.

For nearly 60 years, Virginia Perez has called Morningside Park her neighborhood home. Every weekend for the past summer months, she has brought out senior residents and her larger community, gathering them around picnic tables with barbecue and soda, to support her seasonal softball league and “keep them out of the house, while the weather is still nice,” she says. But for around six months, the bathroom in her community “home” has been inaccessible.