Questions linger for tenants near M’ville campus

Over a year after New York City Council approved Columbia’s Manhattanville expansion, the stir over the displacement of affordable housing residents in and around the area has quieted down. While tensions have eased, many still question how the residents of 3333 Broadway will be impacted.

3333 Broadway is a colossal 1,190-unit building stretching from 133rd to 135th streets, located just north of Columbia’s expansion. Until 2005, 3333 was part of the Mitchell-Lama state housing subsidy program, which provided affordable housing for the neighborhood’s low- to middle-income residents. Today, many of those tenants remain, though some have been replaced by high-income renters now that the building’s prices are no longer subject to state regulation.

The University’s relationship to the housing development has also evolved over the past several years, as Columbia officials, politicians, activists, and locals have been critical on how the campus expansion project might impact the building’s residents. Many who live in the neighborhood sense that the Columbia’s plans will only make it more difficult for renters to continue to live in 3333.

“It’s a damn shame,” said Wandra Samuel—a resident of 3333 since she was 18 years old, who recently moved to 612 W. 138th Street. “Columbia is taking over everything, leaving no chance for local people to voice their opinions. There’s no advanced notification when the school does anything, takes over anything.”

Sawn Streets, a resident of 20 years, said, “It’s hard. The rent’s gone up, and I’m sure it’s because of Columbia. It wasn’t always this way.” Still, he noted of the Manhattanville project, “Maybe it’ll open up new business,” though he added, “it’ll probably get worse around here first.”

Yet 3333’s owner, the Urban American Management Corporation, sees no relationship between its property and the campus expansion. “We have nothing to do with Columbia University,” Douglas Eisenberg, the corporation’s chief operating officer, said. “I don’t see any threat to the residents of 3333.”

“Regardless of what Columbia does, Urban American is committed to investing in this building and making sure people stay here in the long run,” Joe DePlasco, UAM spokesman, added. “We have bought many buildings in awful areas, and invested significant dollar amounts in improving tenant life.”

Last year, the Legal Aid Society—a New York firm that provides legal services to poor families—filed a class-action suit in the New York State Supreme Court of Manhattan against UAM to “protect the rights of 1,000 residents who are in danger of being homeless,” according to the society’s Web site. But Ellen Davidson, an attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said “I don’t think that Columbia and its expansion has anything to do with 3333 Broadway.”1`

Meanwhile, Columbia spokesperson Victoria Benitez explained that contrary to the complaints of 3333 residents, the University’s expansion is aimed at helping the communities both within and surrounding the development area.

“3333 Broadway is located in CB9. As part of the CB9, residents would benefit from these and other Columbia-funded commitments to the area,” Benitez said. referring to the community-benefits agreement still being negotiated between the University and a collection of neighborhood representatives who comprise the West Harlem Local Development Corporation. As of now, Columbia has promised to follow through on commitments outlined in the $150 million nonbinding memorandum of understanding the University signed with the West Harlem Local Development Corporation in December 2007, though details of the binding CBA version are still in the works.

Benitez said these benefits extend “beyond the expansion zone into adjacent West Harlem communities.”

Still, critics of the Manhattanville project find fault in Columbia’s promises for community aid both within and beyond its expansion zone, particularly when it comes to the area’s low-income residents.

“3333 Broadway is becoming the biggest single tragedy of the expansion on the issue of secondary displacement,” said Andrew Lyubarsky, CC ’09 and a member of the campus activist group Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification.

“There is already intensifying harassment of long-standing tenants by the landlords there, and it would be absurd not to mention that the fact that the building will essentially be a thousand-plus units apartment complex across the street from the Manhattanville campus played a role in the decision of the landlords to exit the Mitchell-Lama program and that the expectation of Columbia’s arrival is accelerating the rate at which they are trying to flip the apartments in the building,” Lyubarsky said.

“We all need somewhere to live, but no one can afford it,” said Phyllis Adams, a 3333 resident since the building opened in 1976.

“Although there are provisions for the generation of affordable housing,” Lyubarsky noted of the developing CBA, “there are no provisions for the maintenance of 3333 Broadway as an affordable housing area, given the massive amounts of money it would take to do so and the lack of viable legal avenues.”

Still, some tenants remain optimistic about future business brought by the expansion.

“There are already a lot of students shopping and spending here. It’s a good thing,” said Isidoro Bolanos, pastor at the Iglesia Cristiana on the corner of Hamilton Place and West 139th Street. “The expansion will bring more spending.”