Cooper Union

Cooper Union Alumni Elect Write-In Trustee Kevin Slavin on Transparency Platform

The results came in on Friday. After announcing he'd run the day the Cooper Union administration stated it would begin charging tuition starting with the class of 2014, Kevin Slavin, tech entrepreneur and assistant professor at MIT's MediaLab, won as a write-in candidate for alumni trustee to the Co ... More >>

A Cooper Union Student, the Chair of Trustees, and Felix Salmon Walked Into a Debate

ICYMI: After Cooper Union president Jamshed Bharucha met students for a surprise discussion in his office earlier this week, on Wednesday morning Democracy Now! hosted a rare, moderated forum with Victoria Sobel, a Cooper Union student organizer, Mark Epstein, the chair of trustees, and Felix Salmon ... More >>

VIDEO: Cooper Union Students Still Camped Out in President's Office, Now Red

Students protesting the end of Cooper Union's free educational model are still using president Jamshed Bharucha's office as the base of operations they claimed Wednesday morning. On Wednesday night, roughly 50-60 students from at least five other New York schools rallied on the ground in Cooper Squa ... More >>

VIDEO: Cooper Union Students Take Over President's Office, Hold Vote of No Confidence (Update)

This post is being updated as the story develops. See most recent updates at the bottom. A little before 11 a.m., more than 50 students took over Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha's office on the seventh floor of the school. Students say they're holding a vote of no confidence in Bharucha's l ... More >>

PAPER TRAIL

Where the literati are this week

Cooper Union Ends Full-Tuition Scholarships for Class Entering 2014

The board of trustees of Cooper Union voted on Sunday to end the school's policy of offering a free education to all its undergraduate students, Chairman of the Board Mark Epstein announced this afternoon. Speaking to students in the school's historic Great Hall, Epstein said that beginning with th ... More >>

Education Supplement: Class Action Listings

Deferred Cooper Union Applicants Feel Like Collateral in Board's Beef With Art School

The hearts of the folks running Cooper Union seem to have turned rather cold lately. President Jamshed Bharucha informed faculty members from the School of Art last Wednesday that all of the school's early-decision applicants would either be lumped in with the college's general admission pool or de ... More >>

Cooper Union Art School Faculty Formally Rejects Tuition-Based Proposals

Faculty from the School of Art at Cooper Union sent a letter to the school's dean Friday opposing proposals to implement tuition-based programs at the college. The statement marks the latest development in the on-going fight to preserve the college's long-standing tradition of providing free tuiti ... More >>

Incredible Pizza Delivery Via Balloons to Rooftop Protesters

By now you've heard about the student protests at 153-year-old, privately-funded Cooper Union, where 12 members of Students for a Free Cooper Union have barricaded themselves in the clock-tower demanding the resignation of school president Jamshed Bharucha, along with a public statement from the sch ... More >>

Cooper Union Students Rally Against College Debt Everywhere in Fight to Keep Own Tuition Free

The Cooper Union students who commandeered the clock-tower at the school's Foundation building and coordinated yesterday's day of action in Cooper Square, did so to preserve free tuition for CU students, but also to protest rapidly rising college tuition costs at institutions everywhere. "We're al ... More >>

Student Loans: Will Interest Rates Double?

The Voice recently reported that the interest rates on federally backed Stafford loans will double July 1 -- from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent -- unless Congress gets its shit together. Well, it looks like some legislators in the House are trying to prevent this increase -- by cutting funding to hea ... More >>

Cooper Union Grad Students Are Pissed They'll Soon Have To Pay For School

We snapped the above photo in front of our office this afternoon. It's of a protester -- pissed off about something (tuition, apparently) -- dancing on top of the roughly 40-foot monument in front of Cooper Union. The sign he's holding reads "No Tuition It's Our Mission" -- which apparently is in re ... More >>

100 Most Powerless New Yorkers

A 'power list' for the rest of us

To the Barricades, Variously

A new wave of student activism hits New York City

St. Marks Bookshop Holding a Party to Celebrate Its Survival

The St. Marks Bookshop, which was in danger of closing because of landlord Cooper Union's high rents, was recently saved. Cooper and the bookstore finally came to an agreement to cut the monthly rent by $2500 and forgive $7,000 of the store's rent a few weeks ago. So for now, the independent local b ... More >>

Cooper Union Financial Meltdown Questioned By Faculty

​The board at Cooper Union, a 153-year-old college located right across the street from the Voice, is under fire for floating a plan to start charging tuition for the first time since 1902. The board claims that a financial crisis is forcing its hand, and that it needs new revenue streams to ... More >>

St. Mark's Bookshop Finally Gets Rent Reduction

​After a months-long saga, struggling St. Mark's Bookshop has finally received a rent reduction from landlord Cooper Union (which has been having its own money problems). It's not the full $5,000 off that they wanted, but it's something: Cooper is reducing the rent from $20,000 a month to $17, ... More >>

Scott Stringer, Local Pols Announce St. Mark's Bookshop Rent Reduction

​This morning at the St. Mark's Bookshop, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Cooper Union president Jamshed Bharucha, and the owners of the store held a press conference on the subject of the store's recent rent agreement with Cooper. Some of the usual suspects in East Village politic ... More >>

Cooper Union Students Staging Walkout Today in Protest of Tuition Proposal

​Cooper Union, traditionally free, is considering charging tuition in order to manage an increasingly strained financial situation. As we reported yesterday, students aren't pleased about the proposal. Today, they're staging a "Walk-Work-Act-Out" outside the Foundation Building in the middle o ... More >>

Cooper Union Students Hold Open Forum in Response to Possible New Tuition

Rebecca Nathanson​In the wake of the news that their free university might begin charging tuition, more than 100 Cooper Union students left class this afternoon and took up residence in the middle of Cooper Square. The event, which organizers are hesitant to call a "walkout," currently consis ... More >>

Cooper Union Considers Charging Tuition

​Since 1902, Cooper Union has been free. Students don't pay tuition. The "free as air and water" ethos has been integral to the school's culture, but it could be changing. Faced with mounting debt, the school is considering a shift from free to...being like every other university in the countr ... More >>

Cooper Union Re-Considering Lowering Rent for St. Mark's Bookshop

​St. Mark's Bookshop vs. Cooper Union: the saga continues. A few days ago we reported that Cooper Union, St. Mark's Bookshop's landlord, had refused to lower the store's rent from $20,000 to $15,000 a month. Today it turns out there's still hope! Owner Bob Contant told the Local EV that "They ... More >>

St. Mark's Bookshop Has a New Petition

​Jeremiah Moss, the creator of the blog Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, has responded to yesterday's dispiriting denial of a rent reduction to St. Mark's Bookshop by Cooper Union with his own petition. (Nearly 44,000 people signed the petition to save the store, though those signatures did not ... More >>

Cooper Union Says No to Lowering St. Mark's Bookshop's Rent

​St. Mark's Bookshop and the surrounding community have been campaigning for landlord Cooper Union to lower the store's rent from $20,000 to $15,000 a month. The Cooper Square Committee yesterday delivered to Cooper Union a petition that accrued nearly 44,000 signatures, but it wasn't enough: ... More >>

Salman Rushdie Joins the Save the St. Mark's Bookshop Effort

​The petition to save St. Mark's Bookshop has now reached nearly 44,000 names, and one of the latest celebrity supporters of the store is Salman Rushdie, who recently wrote a letter to Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha urging the school to decrease the bookshop's rent by $5,000 a month, ... More >>

The Fate of St. Mark's Bookshop Could Be Decided Today [Update]

​St. Mark's Bookshop has fallen on hard times lately, inspiring a local campaign to pressure landlord Cooper Union to lower the rent from $20,000/month to a more manageable $15,000. Otherwise, the store might have to close. According to a letter from the Cooper Square Committee, today is the ... More >>

Cooper Square Committee Protests Cooper Union Over St. Mark's Bookshop Rent

Jocelyn Silver​Cooper Union held an inauguration ceremony today at noon for new president Jamshed Bharucha. In keeping with the revolutionary trend sweeping NYC, the Cooper Square Community Development Committee and Businessmen's Association staged a rather low-key protest for the struggling S ... More >>

State Senator Daniel Squadron Joins Supporters of St. Mark's Bookshop

​The beloved St. Mark's Bookshop, still in the throes of their rent battle with the Cooper Union, has found another high-profile advocate in State Senator Daniel Squadron. Squadron is the second public official, after Borough President Scott Stringer, to write to Cooper Union President Jamshed ... More >>

St. Marks Bookshop Had a 35 Percent Increase in Sales This Weekend

​The St. Marks Bookshop is facing a possible eviction, and we, and others, have been urging people who want to save it to not just sign the online petition (which now has nearly 30,000 signatures) but also...buy books. After all, if each of those 30,000 people would buy one $14.95 book, the st ... More >>

Padma Paid to Get Off Stage; Olive Garden and Red Lobster to Cut Salt, Calories

​Padma Lakshmi, who hosted The Moth's storytelling event at Cooper Union Tuesday night, was reportedly paid to get off the stage due to a "grating" performance. [NY Post] The Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and others are hopping on Michelle Obama's healthy-eating bandwagon and pledging to reduce ... More >>

Save the St. Marks Bookshop Has 27,000 Signatures...But Can a Petition Save St. Marks Bookshop?

​The St. Marks Bookshop, a lovely place very near Voice headquarters, surrounded by several other lovely places (and some less lovely) that have changed numerous times since we were college students staying at an NYU dorm for the summer, has managed to hang on -- since 1977, albeit in a few di ... More >>

Rent Too Damn High for St. Mark's Bookshop; East Village Institution Might Have to Close

​Local institution St. Mark's Bookshop is in danger of closing, and the Cooper Square Committee, a neighborhood group, has started a petition to try to save the independent bookstore. Rising rents and decreasing revenue have put the bookshop's future in jeopardy as the owners attempt to negoti ... More >>

51 Astor Gets Prepped for Demolition

Esther Zuckerman​Is the East Village ready for yet another big, shiny building? Well, it's getting one at 51 Astor Place. A 183-foot-tall office building with space for retail designed by Fumihiko Maki will inhabit the plot, which used to house the Cooper Union engineering department. The 17-m ... More >>

Rent Is Too Damn High; Rent Guidelines Board Votes to Jack It Up Some More Anyway

This is what angry renters look like.​Affordable housing can be nearly impossible to find in New York today -- unless you are lucky enough to reside in one of the city's 1-million-plus rent-stabilized apartments. But even that refuge is being chipped away at. Last night the Rent Guidelines ... More >>

Mike Bloomberg Gives Case for Marriage Equality at Cooper Union

Mayor Bloomberg gave a forceful speech for gay marriage yesterday at the Cooper Union, placing the marriage equality debate in the context of the fights for women's suffrage, abolition, and abortion rights. He spoke of the issue nationally, but grounded it in New York's specific civil rights histor ... More >>

Cooper Square Park Won't Have Any Stinkin' Food Trucks

Shadowy people, yes. Shadowy food trucks, no.​Once Cooper Square Park gets its facelift, don't expect any food trucks to besmirch its shiny new visage.

Man Attempts to Ski Streets of New York City

What do you do when you're snowed in in one of the six worst storms EVER in New York CIty? Hunker down and booze? Watch Law and Order marathons? Drag out all that ski gear that you haven't touched since getting hardcore into cycling and attempt to use it? Well, we know what this enterprising fellow, ... More >>

Art Stunts: Cooper Square Park Exponentially More Strung Out Than Usual Today

​ 'Not entirely sure who's responsible this -- the most readily available culprits are the Rainman-esque "genius" children of Cooper Union -- but someone actually took the time to tie several pieces of bright orange string to the tipped-gate of Cooper Square Park, then run them down the length ... More >>

This Week in the Voice: A Cooper Union Student's Eye for an Education

​The typical college student's time abroad is used primarily for escaping into lands of legal-age drinking and assorted other debauchery. Cooper Union student Emily Henochowicz ended up doing something slightly different with her time: protesting in the West Bank this past May. That was when s ... More >>

MTA Spending $34 Million This Year on Employee "Overtime" (Read: Vacation)

​These days, no news from the MTA is good news.Turns out the transit authority is spending $34 million this year on overtime for workers who aren't actually working, but are on vacation, out sick, etc.

The Rain Man Class of 2010: Cooper Union Graduates!

Photo by F. Kamer, taken for the 2010 Shit We See on the Street collection, presented by The Runnin' Scared No-Go-Gagosian Gallery. Click to enlarge.​Don't let NYU, Columbia, The New School, Hunter, City University, Baruch, Hofstra, Pace, or any of the others outshine you, Cooper Union!

Photos: Barack Obama Is Hanging Out in the East Village Like Right Now

We'd like to welcome our new office neighbor for the day, President Barack Obama, who got started speaking at the Cooper Union about five minutes ago. In the meantime, Cooper Square and the East Village has turned into a bona fide shitshow.

Name-Dropping Lincoln at the Obama Speech

Obamania Comes To Cooper Union

Spire Education: Cooper Union's Towering Tax Break

Listings

Dis-Astor Place?

Cooper Union Sets a Tall Order for Redevelopment

Fresh Start

Where New Grads Turn Into Emerging Artists

Wordstock

A Dispatch From the People's Poetry Gathering