Columbia University has kept College Walk, the stretch of West 116th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, closed to the public for more than two years, forcing neighborhood residents to walk six extra blocks to get around campus.
The city sold that stretch of street to Columbia in 1953 under an easement guaranteeing continued public access. The university closed it off after the pro-Palestinian encampment and building occupation on its Morningside campus, when protesters took over Hamilton Hall and demonstrators demanded that meal-plan food be delivered to those occupying the building, citing fears of “dehydration and starvation.” Columbia eventually called in the NYPD to clear the occupation.
Since then, the university has maintained that it has the discretion to keep the walkway closed for campus security. It offers a workaround: locals can apply for a QR code, using a state ID, to gain access to College Walk. But the six-block detour required without that code falls hardest on elderly and disabled residents trying to reach the grocery store or the downtown 1 train.
Columbia has continued to expand its footprint in the surrounding Morningside Heights neighborhood in recent years, even as it restricts a public right-of-way that the city sold with conditions attached.
The closure remains in place even though Columbia has separately taken a harder line against disruptive protest activity on campus. One case that drew attention was that of Mahmoud Khalil, a 40-year-old Algerian graduate student described as demanding to “negotiate” terms with the university during the unrest.
For now, the public easement granted in 1953 remains unenforced against the university’s continued closure of the street.
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