Campus of New York University

The urban campus of New York University is located in Manhattan, New York, primarily situated around Washington Square Park.

Facilities and monuments

Most of NYU's buildings are scattered across a roughly square area bounded by Houston Street to the south, Broadway to the east, 14th Street to the north, and Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) to the west. Most of NYU buildings surround Washington Square Park.

Washington Square campus

[
La Maison Française]

Since the late 1970s, the central part of NYU is its Washington Square campus in the heart of Greenwich Village. Despite being public property, and expanding the 5th avenue axis into Washington Square Park, the Washington Square Arch is the unofficial symbol of NYU. Every year, the Washington Square campus holds its commencement (graduation) ceremonies in Washington Square Park. Important facilities at Washington Square are the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, designed by Philip Johnson and Richard Foster, who also designed several other structures, such as Tisch Hall, Meyer Hall, and the Hagop Kevorkian Center. When designing these buildings Johnson and Foster also set up a master plan for a complete redesign of the NYU Washington Square Campus. However, it was never implemented. Other historic buildings include the Silver Center (formerly known as "Main building"); Brown Building; Judson Hall, which houses the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center [http://www.nyu.edu/pages/kjc/flash.php] ; Vanderbilt Hall, the historic townhouse row on Washington Square North; the Kaufman Management Center; and the Torch Club (the NYU dining and club facility for alumni, faculty and administrators). Just a block south of Washington Square is NYU's Washington Square Village, housing graduate students and junior and senior faculty residences in the Silver Towers, designed by I.M. Pei, where an enlargement of Picasso's sculpture Bust of Sylvette (1934) is displayed.

The contractors of the Old University Building used prisoners from Sing Sing to cut the marble. This hiring was the catalyst for the famous Stonecutter's Riot. The old University Building was also subject to several ghost stories. It was believed that the building was haunted by a young artist resident who had died in one of the building's turrets. The spirit was said to pace through the hallways and staircases. In 1880, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that “the structure has an evil repute with the servant girls of the neighborhood…They have a notion that deep in subcellars lie corpses, skeletons and other dreadful things”. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, 1911 took place in the Brown Building which today is part of the NYU campus. More than a hundred garment workers, most young women and girls, died or jumped to their deaths after a fire broke out whilst all exit doors were locked. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.

In the 1990s, NYU became a "Two Square" university by building a second community around Union Square, about a 10-minute walk from Washington Square. NYU's Union Square community consists of the upperclassmen residence halls of Carlyle Court, Palladium Residence Hall, University Hall, Alumni Hall, Coral Towers, Thirteenth Street Hall, and Third North Residence Hall.

NYU theaters and clubs

NYU operates several theaters and performance facilities that are often used by the university's music conservatory and Tisch School of the Arts but also external productions. The largest performance accommodations at NYU are the Skirball Center for Performing Arts (850 seats) at 566 LaGuardia Place, just south of Washington Square South; and the Eisner-Lubin Auditorium (560 seats) in the Kimmel Center. Recently, the Skirball Center hosted important speeches on foreign policy by John Kerry [John Kerry's speech at NYU http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2004/09/iraq-040920-kerry01.htm] and Al Gore [Al Gore's speech at NYU http://www.moveon.org/gore-speech.html] as well as the recording of the season finale of The Apprentice 3. Well-known also is NYU's Provincetown Playhouse on MacDougal Street, where Eugene O'Neill among many others launched his career and the Frederick Loewe Theatre. Catalyst to many careers in music (Bruce Springsteen began his career here among many others) was the famous nightclub The Bottom Line, found on the corner of West 4th and Mercer Streets. Despite the objections of many supporters, this club was evicted by NYU after being unable to meet for several months the increased rent payments.

Bobst Library

The Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, built between 1967 and 1972, is the largest library at NYU and one of the largest academic libraries in the U.S. Designed by Philip Johnson and Richard Foster, the 12-story, 39,000 m² (425,000 square feet) structure sits on the southern edge of Washington Square Park and is the flagship of an eight-library, 4.5 million volume system that provides students and faculty members with access to the world’s scholarship and serves as a center for the University’s intellectual life. Bobst Library contains more than 3.3 million volumes, 20,000 journals, and more than 3.5 million microforms. The library is visited by more than 6,500 users each day, and circulates almost one million books annually [http://afghanistandl.nyu.edu/about/library.html] . In addition to its regular collection it houses a number of special collections and archives, including the Archives of Irish America and the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives.

The floor of the library, when viewed from above, was designed to appear three-dimensional. In late 2003, Bobst Library was the site of two suicidal incidents. Two students jumped from the open-air crosswalks inside the library onto the marble floor below. The students later died of their injuries. [ [http://www.nyusuicides.com/mediaclips005.html Media Clips ] ] After the second suicide, NYU installed plexi-glass windows on each level to prevent further attempts. In 2003, Bobst Library was also in the news for being the home of a homeless student who resided at the library because he could not afford student housing. [ [http://www.homelessatnyu.com/ charity age concern donation fund at homelessatnyu.com ] ] [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3665885.stm]

Recent developments

Over the last few years, NYU has developed a number of new facilities on and around its Washington Square Campus:

The Kimmel Center for University Life, named for benefactors Helen and Martin Kimmel, was built in 2003 to house the majority of the University's student services offices. The center also houses the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, the Rosenthal Pavilion, the Eisner & Lubin Auditorium, and the Loeb Student Center. The Jack H. Skirball Center for the Performing Arts is a professionally operated and programmed 850-seat proscenium theater. Presentations there have included the Abbey Theater of Dublin's Playboy of the Western World, the world premiere of Mabou Mines Red Beads, a series of concerts by World Music Institute, and a series of superlative dance companies, including Lar Lubovitch and Bill T. Jones. The Skirball Center is the largest performing arts facility south of 42nd Street. [http://www.nyu.edu/kimmel/perf_arts.shtml The Skirball Center for the Performing Arts]

The School of Law's Furman Hall, built in 2004, was named for NYU Law alumnus Jay Furman (JD '71). Rebuilt elements of two historic buildings were incorporated into the new facade, one of which was occupied by poet Edgar Allan Poe. [Albert Amateau. "N.Y.U. opens new building for law school". "The Villager". Volume 73, Number 37, January 14 - 2, 2004 http://www.thevillager.com/villager_37/nyuopensnew.html]

In 2005, NYU announced the development of a new life science facility on Waverly Place. The facility will accommodate laboratories and related academic space for the life sciences and will be the first NYU science building developed since the opening of Meyer Hall in 1971. [Lincoln Anderson. "N.Y.U. to use Waverly buildings for its new life sciences center". "The Villager". Volume 74, Number 28, November 17 - 22, 2004 http://www.thevillager.com/villager_81/nyutousewaverly.html]

In November 2005, NYU announced plans to build a 26-floor, convert|190000|sqft|m2|sing=on residence hall on 12th Street. The residence hall is expected to accommodate about 700 undergraduates and contain a host of other student facilities. It is to be the tallest building in the East Village. [ [http://media.www.nyunews.com/media/storage/paper869/news/2005/11/08/NewscampusNews/New-Dorm.Coming.In.2009-2387197.shtml New dorm coming in 2009: 26-story residence hall to be built on 12th Street] , "NYU News", November 8, 2005] The plans have caused anger among East Village and other New York City residents, as the new building would be built over the old St. Ann's Church. [ [http://villagevoice.com/news/0610,lombardi,72426,2.html Not Subject to Review: As NYU plans towering dorm for 12th Street, East Village neighbors cry foul] , "The Village Voice", March 7, 2006]

Medical and other campuses

The main NYU Medical Campus is situated at the East River waterfront at First Ave. between East 30th and East 34th Streets. The campus hosts the Medical School, Tisch Hospital, and the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine. Other NYU Centers across the city include NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases and the Bellevue Hospital Center. NYU’s Ehrenkranz School of Social Work manages branch campus programs in Westchester County at Manhattanville College and in Rockland County at St. Thomas Aquinas College. In Sterling Forest, near Tuxedo, New York, NYU has a research facility that contains several institutes, in particular the Nelson Institute of Environmental Medicine. The Midtown Center at 11 West 42nd Street and the Woolworth Building in the financial district are home to NYU's continuing education programs.

Foreign facilities

NYU has an extensive study abroad program in which a good portion of the student body participates; hence, the school has earned the nickname “Global U.” Unlike most other universities, NYU has its own international facilities in several countries. Most noteworthy is the 57 acre campus of NYU Florence at Villa LaPietra in Italy, bequeathed by the late Sir Harold Acton to NYU in 1994. [ [http://www.nyu.edu/nyutoday/archives/16/01/Stories/LaPietra.html NYU Today ] ] NYU manages undergraduate academic year study abroad programs in Florence, London, Paris, Prague, Berlin, Accra, and Madrid; and recently started a program in Shanghai.

International houses on campus

NYU has several international houses to foster the study of international culture and languages. The international houses have their own classroom space, libraries, offices, and often host campus events. The NYU international houses are:
* [http://www.nyu.edu/deutscheshaus/lang_cal.shtml/ Deutsches Haus]
* La Maison Française
* [http://www.irelandhouse.fas.nyu.edu Glucksman Ireland House] ,
* [http://www.nyu.edu/pages/casaitaliana/ Casa Italiana] ,
* [http://www.nyu.edu/pages/kjc/flash.php/ King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center]
* [http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/program/neareast/ Hagop Kevorkian Center]
* Africa House
* China House

NYU was also the founding member of the League of World Universities.

Residence halls

With 12,500 residents, NYU has the seventh largest university housing system in the U.S. and the largest among private schools. [ [http://www.housing.umich.edu/general/topten.html UM General Information ] ] Uniquely, many of NYU residence halls are converted apartment complexes or old hotels. Most freshman residence halls are in the Washington Square area. While nearly all the upper classmen dorms are in the Union Square area, a few of them are as far as the Financial District, Manhattan. Until the Spring 2005 semester, NYU used a lottery system to determine eligibility for residence hall preference. Under this system, a student received one point for every semester they had lived in campus housing. Freshmen are freed from the lottery system and are by tradition placed in the halls closest to the main campus area. Therefore, historically, most of the students who lived in dorms found off-campus were sophomores. However, beginning in the fall 2006 semester, sophomores received priority housing, giving them first choice of residence halls. The purpose of this initiative was to keep the sophomore class together in the Union Square area. As a result, the junior class (class of 2008) and the senior class (class of 2007) never benefited from first choice as sophomores or seniors. The university operates its own transit system to transport its students, by bus or trolley, to campus. Undergraduate students are guaranteed housing during their enrollment at NYU.

Twenty-one buildings are in NYU's undergraduate housing system. In general, NYU residence halls receive favorable ratings, and some are opulent. Many rooms are spacious and contain amenities considered rare for individual college residence hall rooms, such as kitchens and living rooms/common areas. All residence halls are staffed by 24-hour security staff, contain multiple resident assistants (RAs), and several halls contain faculty in residence. Unlike many other universities, NYU rooms all have their own bathrooms and thus no common bathrooms exist. Many residence halls have their own dining hall, and the university has meal choices to suit various diets. Almost all the residence halls have a laundry room that is open to resident students 24 hours a day. The price of using these facilities varies from hall to hall, as some halls are leased; NYU is unable to control the laundry prices.All the residence halls are governed by the Inter-Residence Hall Council (IRHC), an umbrella student council organization. Each hall elects student representatives to the IRHC, and those representatives meet with one another to form committees and vote on an executive board. The goal of this group is to create programs for university students and to act as a link to university administration.

References