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WORDS BY PHOTOS BY ALYA ALBERT AARON COHEN
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CONRAD MILSTER HAS BEEN REMOVED from his 58-year post as Pratt’s chief engineer and has been sent to the basement of Higgins Hall. In June, while the campus was quiet, Milster received notice that he would no longer be positioned as chief engineer and would instead be building manager for Higgins Hall. “I was asked by the facilities manager if I could stop into his office,” says Milster. “He handed me an envelope. It was a job description and I said what’s this and he said it’s yours.” This change comes as the newest development in the much publicized and petitioned series of events that have pitted administration against Milster and the battalion of faculty, alumni, students, and cats in his support. In October 2015 Milster, and four other faculty and staff members, were abruptly asked to leave their homes in the campus townhouses on Willoughby Ave to make room for student housing. With the help of a Gothamist article and a petition with more than 3,000 signatures, the situation was quickly becoming a scandal before President Schutte made moves to quiet the uproar. “The New York Times was going to do an article and since I had been here the longest the institute came to me and said that they had thought it over and as long as I was employed at Pratt I could stay in the house.” Milster explains. The four other tenants did not receive the same treatment, and were asked to leave. “They would very much I suspect like me out, “ Milster tells, “I suspect this is tied in with the whole thing.” Administration, however, attributes Milster’s relocation to his refusal to comply with their repeated demands to keep the Pratt cats out of the Engine Room where they were aggravating one of the engineers allergies. “I was told, ‘you didn’t take the cats out of the power plant, therefore we are taking you out of the power plant.’” Milster is now charged with the maintenance of Higgins Hall. “The building has run quite well for something like 25 or 30 years without a building manager. The staff that’s here knows exactly what to do.” says Milster, “I sit hear and I here them talking on the radio about problems that I used to take care of and used to be involved in, and its like a knife in me.” His office, deep in the bowels of the architecture building, is decorated with recognizable pieces from the engine room. As for the cats, they have their small coop in the courtyard near the engine room for now, but winter is coming and it’s not known what will happen to them without the warmth indoors. The Engine Room remains locked., “It’s closed off to me too. I understand that I’m not allowed back in the power plant unless I get permission from the office, ” Milster adds, “I see them [the cats] but I do not go in the courtyard. I do not go in the east building, I don’t go anywhere on that side of the mall because it’s no longer my area.” The Gothamist recently put out another article on Milster and the Pratt community has taken to social media to commiserate. Administration declined to make a statement, citing the institute’s protocol of not commenting on personal subjects. “I gave Pratt 58 years of my life and a quarter million dollars for a scholarship, and this is what they did to me,” says Milster. “So am I hurt? You better believe it. They have destroyed my interest and my will. I feel betrayed, in one sentence, I feel betrayed.”