More Tales from Columbia: Fine Arts Are Not So Fine in University Expansion

The fine arts component of the huge Renzo Piano-designed "Manhattanville" expansion to the north of Columbia University's current campus appears to have been significantly downsized from the initial concept. Piano had sketched in a large new facility for the School of the Arts: It is the structure with the curved-glass front on Page 11 at this link.

That building, however, is no longer envisioned in the revised plan. I learned this when I took one of the many Manhattanville walking tours that Columbia has offered to interested alumni. Fine arts (visual arts, film, theater and writing), now scattered among various Columbia buildings, would be assigned to renovated portions of Prentis Hall, an existing Columbia building on 125th Street, and to a more modest new structure.

The School of the Arts itself has recently experienced considerable turmoil, as this article from the Columbia Spectator indicates. Dean Bruce Ferguson resigned in April; Dan Kleinman of the Film Division is acting dean.

With all the community ferment over the university's far-reaching plans, who knows if and when the expansion will actually happen? As the NY Times said in its Nov. 26 editorial:

The school is facing a real fight over its plans to build new facilities on 17 acres just to the north in West Harlem, where auto shops and light industry predominate. Residents are raising valid questions about what Columbia will take from---and be willing to give to---the neighborhood.