Local residents made their voices heard at a town hall meeting on Wednesday night damning NYU’s recently certified 2031 plan to add roughly 1.3 million square feet of new building space, including a 38-story tower. The school wrote that its twenty-year plan would ensure that NYU’s “academic capability is not undercut by its physical capacity.” The meeting drew more than 100 residents who asked questions in advance of public hearings scheduled for Monday. “It is David and Goliath,” said Greenwich Village preservationist Andrew Berman, who fears that the buildings would spoil the eclectic neighborhood. “But we’ve won those David and Goliath battles before, and we do have hope because nothing NYU wants to do is currently legal.” Yes, there’s going to be a battle before NYU can make those pretty little diagrams a reality.
