The Municipal Art Society of New York

• Garment District |
• East Side Waterfront Park |
• Moynihan Station |
• NYU Expansion |
• Livable Neighborhoods |
• Community Planning |
• Positions & Testimony

NYU Plans for Growth

New York University hopes to add six million square feet of campus space throughout New York City by its bicentennial year, 2031. Nearly half of this expansion, about 2.5 million square feet, is slated for two Washington Square area superblocks located in NYU’s campus within Greenwich Village. The remaining 3.5 million square feet will be spread throughout the city in areas such as the health corridor along First Avenue between 23rd and 34th streets in Manhattan and the Polytechnic University in downtown Brooklyn.NYU states that it needs more space in order to reduce pressure on overburdened academic facilities, meet the future needs of a growing student body and to continue to attract distinguished faculty members with state of the art research space and faculty housing. Balancing these needs with those of the surrounding communities is the critical challenge in this process.

Greenwich Village Expansion

As New York City’s foremost organization on livability, MAS has taken an active role in ensuring that the character of Greenwich Village, one of the city’s most emblematic neighborhoods, is carefully considered throughout NYU’s 2031 expansion process.

In 2010 MAS was a member of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s Community Task Force on NYU Development, which brought community members, representatives and various non-profit and block associations together to draft a set of planning principles meant to help guide NYU’s community engagement. To read the task force findings and recommendations, see their website: http://communitynyc.org/

MAS continues to closely monitor NYU’s expansion plan, which took its first step toward the city’s public review process, officially referred to as the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), this past spring by submitting an Environmental Assessment Statement and draft scoping document to the New York City Department of City Planning. MAS reviewed this document and submitted comments to City Planning on May 24, 2011. These comments are located here. We will continue to update our site, so check back soon for more on this important issue.