1968 Ad

Journal of Social History, Summer, 2008 by Blake Slonecker

From the perspective of the working-class black, Chinese, and Puerto Rican families living in the Morningside Heights section of Harlem, municipal Morningside Park held greater symbolic than practical import. On the one hand, the park was a rock-strewn wasteland of little practical use, frequented more often by petty criminals and drug addicts than by energetic children or hearty recreation ists. The park contained no exercise facilities and offered little in the way of diversion for the community. In practical terms, Harlem stood to gain a great deal from the gym; Columbia's presence would likely eliminate the seedier sort from haunting the park and community members would have access to new workout facilities. On the other hand, the park represented an important buffer zone between Morningside Heights and Columbia University--that haven of white academia and leisure that looked down upon Harlem in the east from its perch atop the park's craggy incline. By 1968, Columbia's encroachment upon Morningside Heights was well underway. During the preceding decade, the University had evicted more than seven thousand Harlemites from Columbia-controlled properties--85 percent of whom were African American or Puerto Rican-- and many others continued to sign monthly rent checks to the University.(15) One Harlem activist called Columbia's president "the biggest slumlord in Harlem," (16) while another bemoaned Columbia's "communicidal" policy toward Harlem. (17) Meanwhile, Morningside Park remained one of the few tracts of sizable real estate unaffected by Columbia's expansionist policy. Thus, the proposed construction of the new gymnasium sought to eliminate a sacred Harlem enclave-- whatever its practical value. (18)

From the perspective of the Columbia administration, however, the controversy was baffling. Not only had Columbia legally obtained the gym contract, but halting construction also stood to cost the University as much as five million dollars. (19) Inept communication and conflicting visions for the use of Morning side Park set the administration and Harlem activists on a collision course; the conflict was all the more troubling because each proposal for the use of the park was legitimate in its own right. (20)

Organized opposition to the Morningside Park development began with John Lindsay's mayoralty campaign in the fall of 1965 and soon thereafter picked up steam. Drawing upon a report issued by a task force investigating New York City's parks, Lindsay objected to gym construction because the immediate neighborhood had not been sufficiently involved in the process and because he opposed the development of parkland, particularly by a private interest. In January of 1966, sixteen Harlem organizations formed the West Harlem Morningside Park Committee to oppose gym construction. This antagonism soon spread to Columbia's campus. The following month, the Columbia chapter of CORE voiced opposition to the project; the Citizenship Council, Graduate and Undergraduate Student Councils, and--quietly--SDS soon followed suit. By 1967, strains of community opposition became increasingly militant in their stances. At a Harlem community meeting in December of 1967, H. Rap Brown of Harlem SNCC encouraged citizen radicalism: "If they build the first story blow it up. If they sneak back at night and build three stories burn it down. And if they get nine stories built, it's yours. Take it over, and maybe we'll let them in on the weekends." (21) At the onset of the student strike in 1968, 60 percent of Columbia students and 59 percent of its faculty favored permanently stopping gym construction despite the administration's and trustees' legitimate acquistion of the project contract. (22) The administration's ownership of a legal contract left it with overwhelming power in the debate over gym construction; this power included the capacity to negotiate with the obviously distraught Harlem community, Columbia students, and faculty--an opportunity that the administration ignored. (23)