As Christine Ruyter began resuming her routines last spring after hip replacement, she encountered an obstacle a block from her Morningside Heights home. College Walk, the tree-lined pedestrian thoroughfare across Columbia University between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway, was indefinitely closed to the public. To control the chaos of anti-Israel unrest after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, the university had uniformed guards at the walk’s entrances bar anyone without a Columbia ID or pass.
Columbia, which has long enjoyed the benefits of being in New York City, has been keeping the city out when the city becomes inconvenient.
Columbia claims New York City ceded control of College Walk in 1953, when it sold the university the deed to that portion of West 116th Street for $1,000. In Columbia’s telling, allowing the public to walk through had been a lengthy act of kindness.
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Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here. Nicole is the author of Movement: New York’s Long War to Take Back Its Streets from the Car, available now.
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