storage wars

Okay I confess I am a hoarder, I like stuff.  To tell this story, I have to admit this first.  Like a typical New Yorker, I just don’t have enough room for all my stuff and as a typical woman I never have enough closet space.  Actually in New York, men and women are neck and neck on this situation…but I digress. So to accommodate all my extra stuff, I rented a storage space at Tuck-It-Away, a storage warehouse on the Upper Upper Westside aka Morningside Heights/West Harlem, hard by the Hudson River.  So apparently there has been a long-standing turf war between Columbia University and the businesses in this little corner of Harlem and namely, Tuck-It-Away.  Columbia  wanted space to expand, to build a state  of the art research center, professor housing, student dormitories and additional classroom space.  So this neighborhood of mostly working class immigrants and African-Americans, which Columbia has almost always disassociated itself  from, although it is just blocks from its main campus fought the legal struggle of its life.  A little something called “eminent domain.”  became the reigning victor in this fierce turf battle.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              What is eminent domain?

“Eminent domain, broadly understood, is the power of the state to seize private

property without the owner's consent. Historically, the most common uses of

property taken by eminent domain are public facilities, highways, and railroads.

Traditionally the power of eminent domain has been exercised for the

construction of large public projects, but its use is beginning to be broadened to

projects involving not ‘public use’ but ‘public benefit.’ The decision in Kelo v. City

of New London, a case that came before the US Supreme Court in 2004, set a

precedent for property to be transferred to a private owner for the purpose of

economic development. The court found that if an economic project creates new

jobs, increases tax and other city revenues, and revitalizes a depressed or

blighted urban area it qualifies as a public use.”*

So Tuck-It-Away and many, many other smaller businesses (including my car mechanic) lost their fight to remain because public land can be allowed to be transferred to the private sector for clearly defined public use. If it is determined that the usage of the land will benefit a blighted or depressed area.  Hmmm. 

We just dropped hundreds of dollars at an upscale restaurant around the corner. Blighted? Or is this another case of bullying the little guy.

So I hope the newly recruited professors enjoy their well-appointed  new abodes and newly minted research center, for my storage, it has a new home in the South Bronx, like so many Manhattanites that have been out priced  and forced to relocate to another borough.

*Thanks to Wikipedia