I arrived in Morningside Heights at around 11:00AM in the morning on Easter Sunday. The streets surrounding Columbia University were less crowded than I had expected but busy nonetheless. I sought to research the impact Columbia has had on its surrounding neighborhood: how the neighborhood had changed in recent years, if the neighborhood has undergone or is undergoing gentrification, and how Columbia has potentially played a role in this neighborhood change.

I had many other expectations of the neighborhood surrounding Columbia aside from the number of people roaming the streets. I thought the neighborhood would be filled with people from all different parts of the world, of all different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities and races. I thought the surrounding neighborhood would be a haven for the marginalized minorities who have faced constant discrimination across the United States. I thought that the often poor racial minorities that have been pushed around neighborhoods as rising costs of living forced them out would be able to find homes in Morningside Heights. I did know, however, that the neighborhood was undergoing certain changes. Old buildings were replaced with new ones; white people were moving in, and the numbers of those who had lived in the neighborhood began to decline. These changes were meant to make the neighborhood more middle-class friendly, to gentrify the neighborhood.

I parked my car in front of the Columbia campus entrance on Broadway. To my surprise, the buildings around the campus seemed relatively new and some were under construction. Even more surprisingly, white people clearly outnumbered the minorities in the neighborhood. The white majority were mostly young or middle-aged and many past by with strollers carrying their children. I thought Morningside Heights, a section of Harlem, was supposed to be more diverse. I thought I would encounter more people of color as Harlem is known for having a largely African American populace. The neighborhood itself looked more to me like a crowded main street of a Long Island suburb than a section of Harlem.

I decided to go around the neighborhood and ask random people a series of questions:

1. How has the neighborhood changed in recent years?
2. In your opinion, is neighborhood change positive or negative? In what ways?
3. Has the cost of living in this neighborhood increased substantially over the last several years?
4. What has been preserved in the neighborhood throughout the last few years?
5. Do you think that the university has contributed to change in the neighborhood?

Of course, the direction of the conversation depended on the answers of those interviewed and their knowledge and experience of the neighborhood. Moreover, for the three hours that I was exploring the neighborhood surrounding the campus, only five people agreed to be interviewed and the vast majority that I had asked were too busy to answer the questions or were unfamiliar with the neighborhood.

The first person I interviewed was a security officer of Columbia University, and his responses captured the essence of the change of the neighborhood.

 

He cited the decline in diversity, the rising income levels of the people of the neighborhood, and a lack of low-income and moderate-income housing, summarizing it all as “gentrification.” He acknowledged both the positives and negatives of gentrification as the neighborhood had become safer, cleaner, and the people moving into the neighborhood from different places brought with them “different elements,” but it has “[lost] a lot too… A lot of people [are] forced out of their houses” because they can no longer afford their rents, “mom and pop shops can’t survive” and “Starbucks and Citibank are what seem to thrive.” He also noted that Columbia owns most of the area and the faculty occupy a lot of the nearby apartments at discounted rents. He did hold that most of the buildings in the neighborhood are the same and many are landmarks, and that there is not much construction in the neighborhood but from what I saw there seem to have been some construction projects going on. When I asked him if he thought Columbia contributed to the change in the neighborhood, he replied that they do, but mostly to their own benefit. He said Columbia gives to and takes from the community, but he sees any benefits the community receives are only short-term.

After I thanked him for his time, I set out to take more pictures of the neighborhood. I saw two Columbia University Public Safety vehicles parked right next to each other on Amsterdam Avenue, a clear indicator of the role Columbia plays in the neighborhood. They patrol the streets to ensure the safety of their students. These public safety vehicles are important because they demonstrate that Columbia holds some police power in the neighborhood and thus influences the development of the neighborhood.

I also noticed a store named Ivy League Stationers that carried school supplies, provided printing services, and most importantly Columbia memorabilia. In fact, after looking at the store’s website, I noticed that there are four locations in the neighborhood. These stores accommodate the needs and wants of Columbia students, tourists, and hopefuls, and in an indirect way, Columbia contributes to the gentrification of Morningside Heights.

I decided to walk into the store and interview someone working there. One of the employees agreed to answer my questions.

 

In contrast to the first person I interviewed, the second person I interviewed held that the neighborhood diversified while he was growing up in the area and that more businesses have opened. He saw these changes as positive and he has not seen anything that has adversely affected the neighborhood. After asking him if the cost of living has increased, he told me his neighbors who had moved into an apartment in his building in the 1950s rented their apartment for $92 a month, and they continue to pay that same amount today, but the same apartment would cost much more today than it did in the past. He also said that the residents of the neighborhood, the shops in the neighborhood, and the history of the neighborhood have been preserved and the big business chains have not yet moved in. He noted Columbia’s expansion in the neighborhood as it used to span ten blocks in Morningside Heights, but has since expanded all the way to 190th Street, and he believes that a lot more would change in the neighborhood if Columbia was not there.

Looking back at this interview, I realize that he has obviously benefitted from Columbia’s presence in the neighborhood as he works for a store that sells school supplies and Columbia merchandise, and the college provides it with students, faculty, and tourists who are all potential customers. Moreover, he grew up in the neighborhood and continues to live in it to this day, which means that he was able to keep up with the rising cost of living in the neighborhood, and since rising prices have had less of an impact on him, he might just not be aware of the uprooting of those unable to keep up.

The next man who agreed to be interviewed had just recently moved into the area and did not notice any significant changes in the neighborhood in the short time he has been there, but even he noted Columbia’s impact on the neighborhood, stating that “Columbia makes the neighborhood.”

 

Columbia seems to be the defining aspect of Morningside Heights. It affects the diversity of the community and its local businesses, and even those who have just recently moved into the neighborhood see the role Columbia plays in the neighborhood.

I then walked through the nearby residential area looking for someone to interview. These residential buildings looked high-end. I asked a woman who was walking her dog and was about to enter her apartment building the same questions. Her apartment building seemed to be modern, likely one that has replaced or the older, more affordable buildings. She had noticed that a lot of restaurants have closed down presumably because rents are too high and the cost of living in the neighborhood has increased, but she feels the neighborhood has become more safe. Even though she did not cite anything specific about how Columbia has contributed to change in the neighborhood, she did say that Columbia “has a hand in this whole neighborhood.”

 

For my next interview I decided to return back to Columbia’s campus. I found a man who had just returned from a bike ride and decided to ask him my questions. He immediately said that gentrification is a force in the area and that the “Upper West Side has kind of encroached upon…Morningside Heights.” He saw this gentrification as a positive since the neighborhood has become cleaner, safer, and better maintained, but he did acknowledge that some people have been displaced because they can no longer afford to live there. He also noted the increased cost of living in the neighborhood, but held that it was in keeping with price increases in the rest of the city. He stated that the outsides of buildings, historical landmarks, and the parks in the neighborhood have been kept in tact, but the insides of some of the buildings have been renovated. To answer my final question, he said that “universities in general are…little cultural hubs and…the neighborhood kind of builds around the university,” so the university has a significant impact on its surrounding area.

 

After this interview I decided to head home. I had toured the neighborhood and had received the information I was looking for. I realized that many of my assumptions about Morningside Heights were wrong and that the area was evolving into something different. The gentrification of the area has made the area cleaner and safer, but it has also changed the demographics of the area and some of the people who called Morningside Heights their home have been forced to move.. Columbia seems to be in the center of all this change and even though it may not be directly contributing to the change, it certainly attracts certain people and businesses to the area and its expansion only furthers the change.