3 ARTS
5 UNDER THE ARCH
Review: ‘The Nowhere Inn’ is a trippy exploration of persona
How can NYC(U) be your personality if you’ve only been to Manhattan?
4 CULTURE
6 OPINION
Ranked: NYC nature
NYU should expand institutional financial aid for transfer students
VOLUME LVII | ISSUE 5
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2021
NYU Law civil rights org fights Fla. housing discrimination
ARI SOLOMON | WSN
A view of downtown Tampa from the Hillsborough River. NYU Law’s Civil Rights Clinic and other civil rights organizations are calling for the city of Tampa to end the Crime Free Multi-Housing Program, which they say disproportionately harms people of color.
A group of students and faculty at NYU’s School of Law are calling for the end of the Crime Free MultiHousing Program in Tampa, Florida, which disproportionately targets people of color. By MEGHANA KAKUBAL Contributing Writer Seven civil rights organizations, including NYU Law’s Civil Rights Clinic, the NAACP and the ACLU, have signed a petition calling for the mayor and city council of Tampa, Florida, to end a controversial residential program that they say disproportionately targets people of color. The petition, addressed to Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and the Tampa City Council, seeks to terminate the Crime Free Multi-Housing Program. According to the Tampa Police Department, the program was established in 2013 to eliminate drugs and illegal activity on rental properties. Under the program, landlords are trained to screen prospective ten-
ants, their guests and their families for criminal history and potentially evict them from their apartments. A Tampa Bay Times investigation found that roughly 90% of the 1,100 individuals flagged were Black, and three-quarters of the apartment complexes enrolled in the program were in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. “By training landlords to conduct unnecessary and overly broad criminal-history screenings of prospective tenants and pressuring landlords to evict certain tenants, the Tampa Police Department perpetuates a program that disproportionately targets and excludes tenants of color and their families,” the petition reads. NYU Law students Justin McCarroll and Nathan Lee, who are student advocates at NYU’s Civil Rights Clinic, are actively working with local and national chapters of the NAACP and the ACLU to campaign against the program in Tampa. “They’re removing people and saying they’re removing crime,” Lee said. “It’s treating an entire family as a source of crime, which is not how
crimes work. Human beings are totally capable of changing, and just because one person did something once, it does not mean that they will continue to cause crimes. Equating the act with the person is also not right.” McCarroll said that the lack of oversight in the housing program allows Tampa to evade the Fair Housing Act, a federal law preventing landlords from racially discriminating against tenants. “The best way to make change happen in this situation is for the city council to get involved to produce an ordinance against it,” McCarroll said. “Most legal issues actually don’t get settled in court. It’s a lot of negotiating, it’s educating and it’s having conversations with communities to f igure out what’s best for them.” Since the petition was published, authorities in Tampa have ordered that police provide data to justify the need for the program. Councilmembers also asked the interim police chief, Ruben “Butch” Delgado, to report back on Dec. 2 to describe how police intend to proceed when it
comes to notifying landlords. Lee said NYU’s Civil Rights Clinic and the other signatories want to see a concrete plan detailing how authorities in Tampa will make permanent changes for the future. “They told everybody that they’re willing to make changes and will make changes,” Lee said. “How are they going to address the problem that they already caused and the harm that was furthered by their program?” Deborah Archer, the NYU Law professor leading the Civil Rights Clinic and the ACLU’s national board president, wrote in a statement to WSN that the clinic often partners with other civil rights organizations around the country. In addition to crime-free housing, the clinic is taking on cases regarding New York City school segregation, employment discrimination and infrastructure development destroying Black communities. “For the last few years, the Civil Rights Clinic has partnered with the National NAACP to identify and challenge some of the most discrim-
inatory and outrageous ‘crime-free housing’ programs and ordinances around the country,” Archer wrote. “It stems from our shared interests in preserving equal access to housing and stopping the steady expansion of the reach of policing into other systems.” Inspired by his involvement with the Tampa initiative, Lee hopes that other NYU students and community members will become involved in ending programs like Crime Free Multi-Housing in their own neighborhoods. “Think about where home is for you and see if there’s programs like this,” Lee said. “I thought about where I’m from, generally in the Southern California area, and there are places that have crime-free housing that I was shocked to learn [about]. It can be very eye-opening to see that there can be these kinds of programs that operate in the background unless you are a direct victim of them.” Contact Meghana Kakubal at news@nyunews.com
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MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2021
NEWS
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Edited by ARNAV BINAYKIA
Students protest in solidarity with pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong By GILLIAN BLUM Deputy Copy Chief The Hong Kong Student Advocacy Group at NYU gathered at Washington Square Park on Oct. 1 to mark the 72nd anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China and spread awareness about life in Hong Kong under Chinese Communist Party rule. The Students for Hong Kong Action Day was held in solidarity with Hong Kongers who have fought the CCP’s efforts to consolidate its control of Hong Kong — including the controversial extradition and national security laws that triggered massive anti-CCP protests in the city in 2019 and 2020. HKSAG’s rally began with a speech from program organizer and CAS junior Alexandra Chan, who emphasized Hong Kong’s history of resistance to CCP rule, ever since control of the former British colony was handed over to Beijing in 1997 (Chan is the current mangaing editor if WSN.) After Chan’s introduction, participants were asked to sit in a circle and voice their opinions on the CCP’s impact on Hong Kong. They also wrote messages on the ground of the park in chalk, including “Stand with Uyghurs,” “Free HK” and “I can’t keep calm because Hong Kong is dying.” Asylum seekers from Hong Kong then displayed artwork inspired by their experiences. L and W, who both requested to be referred to by these letters for safety reasons, stood next to a display of W’s illustrations.
“What we are looking for is to ask American people to know what happened in Hong Kong,” L said. “We are in great oppression by the Chinese government. We came here because we are suffering … and it is harming our safety, physically and mentally. We just want to let all of you know that we need your help.” One of W’s paintings was based on the police shooting of a student activist during pro-democracy protests in 2019. “It was a very significant, hard to forget moment for a lot of Hong Kongers,” W said. “So today, since it’s the first of October, I want to show this scene again to the public in New York City.” Kyan, a Columbia GSAS student who asked that their last name not be published for safety reasons, said they are passionate about the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement because their family’s everyday life in Hong Kong has been affected by the CCP. “As a Hong Konger, I came here, and it is quite important for me to connect with my identity in this society,” Kyan said. “I also want to do something for my own society.” In addition to spreading awareness through art and sidewalk chalk, HKSAG also distributed flyers — which included statistics about the CCP’s ongoing crackdown on pro-democracy protests, including the arrests of more than 10,000 demonstrators since 2019. The flyers also included stories such as that of Joshua Wong, a prominent Hong Kong activist who was jailed in Dec. 2020
THIRDBLADE PHOTOGRAPHY
NYU’s Hong Kong Student Advocacy Group displays artwork based on their experiences to spread awareness of the Chinese government’s mistreatment of Hong Kong. The group hosted “Students for Hong Kong Action Day” at Washington Square Park in solidarity with pro-democracy Hong Kongers.
for organizing pro-democracy protests and whose sentence was later extended for his participation in a vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. HKSAG’s mission is to build a move-
ment among New York City students in solidarity with their counterparts protesting for democracy in Hong Kong, organizers said. Disclaimer: Alexandra Chan is WSN’s
managing editor. She did not view or edit this story prior to publication.
Contact Gillian Blum at gblum@nyunews.com
Office of Global Inclusion announces new plans to advance diversity and inclusion
LAUREN SANCHEZ | WSN
On Sept. 28, NYU’s Office of Global Inclusion held a community update webinar. During the event, OGI outlined its plans for each of its six initiatives: Disability Inclusive Culture, the Center for Multicultural Education & Programs, the LGBTQ+ Center, Global Faculty Engagement, Global Leadership and Strategic Innovation & Partnerships.
By JOYCE LI Contributing Writer NYU’s Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation announced plans to increase accountability, promote collective action, and
advance inclusion, diversity, belonging, equity and access, or IDBEA, during the 2021-22 academic year, in a community webinar on Sept. 28. The event outlined the OGI’s plan for each of its six hubs — Disability Inclusive Culture, the Center for Mul-
ticultural Education & Programs, the LGBTQ+ Center, Global Faculty Engagement, Global Leadership and Strategic Innovation & Partnerships — in addition to university-wide diversity goals and efforts. “This time remains a difficult one, as
we continue to live with the uncertainty of COVID-19,” President Andrew Hamilton said as he opened the meeting. “I share with you profound frustration and sadness at the pandemic’s disparate health and economic effects on marginalized communities.” During the webinar, Lisa Coleman, senior vice president for Global Inclusion and Strategic Innovation, introduced a series of new IDBEA initiatives including the Global IDBEA Foundations Module. The training program will launch during the spring 2022 semester and address issues of racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism and xenophobia. The Global Inclusion Officers Council will also use a survey conducted over the past year in partnership with the Student Health Center and NYU’s student government to better understand the experiences of transgender and nonbinary students. In line with these efforts, NYU announced on Sept. 24 that students can have their NYU ID card reprinted to reflect their preferred name or take a new photo to better reflect their gender identity. “I think this is a necessity,” Stern firstyear Wenxuan Zhou said. “If you’re trying to do something for a marginalized group, you need to look at their opinions on what should be done and how they feel about their experiences.” Coleman announced the continuation of some initiatives from previous
years, such as the [Not So] Difficult Dialogues, a space for undergraduate students to address current social identity issues and engage in dialogue. Steinhardt junior Elim Wu, who is on the executive board of the Asian Cultural Union at NYU, believes the initiatives bring the university’s student body together. “Because NYU’s so big, it’s pretty easy to get sucked up in your own circle,” Wu said. “More opportunities to get to know other people [in different communities] in this context would be really good.” Inclusive teaching seminars, monthly mentorships and professional development opportunities for faculty will continue to be offered this year, including the Faculty Innovation and Anti-Racism Microgrant Initiative, the Global Inclusive Leadership and Management Institute, and FOCUS, a student leadership development program. At the end of her presentation, Coleman encouraged attendees to get involved by participating in future OGI initiatives and programs, and utilizing its resources. “As a community, we must be responsible, accountable, and action-oriented,” Coleman said. “That is what we are committed to at the Office of Global Inclusion as we continue with this work.” Contact Joyce Li at news@nyunews.com
Washington Square News
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2021
ARTS
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3
Edited by SASHA COHEN and ANA CUBAS
Review: ‘The Nowhere Inn’ is a trippy exploration of persona
IMAGE COURTESY OF IFC FILMS
“The Nowhere Inn” is a mockumentary starring St. Vincent and Carrie Brownstein that was released on Sept. 17. The film is an experimental look at the role of the modern performer.
By ISABELLA ARMUS Deputy Arts Editor Warning: the 2021 mockumentary “The Nowhere Inn” is a little weird. Directed by Bill Benz and written by and starring Carrie Brownstein and rock musician Annie Clark, who performs as St. Vincent, as exaggerated versions of themselves, “The Nowhere Inn” is a kaleidoscopic fiction in which two women attempt to retrospectively analyze their careers but end up tearing each other apart at
the seams. This exploration is done, or rather undone, by Brownstein’s offer to make a documentary about St. Vincent’s real-life 2017 “MASSEDUCTION” tour as a distraction from her recently rejected pilot and ailing father. The film makes it clear that this documentary was never actually finished, so “The Nowhere Inn” ended up becoming an in-depth catalogue of what went awry. Brownstein begins the project within a project by filming St. Vincent backstage at her first show. She quickly finds out that St.
Vincent — known just as Annie offstage — is much more mellow than her electric onstage persona, as she spends most of her time playing board games and espousing the virtues of fresh beets. This bothers Brownstein. A lot. So much so, in fact, that she explicitly tells Annie how boring she thinks Annie is compared to St. Vincent: “Why can’t you be her all the time?” This comment strikes a nerve with the singer. Afterward, St. Vincent stares at herself in the mirror in anguish. Suddenly, she’s bathed in neon red lighting and all reservation disappears — Annie Clark is gone. The plot spirals from there as the performer devolves into a stereotypical erratic diva. St. Vincent starts demanding to be formally introduced whenever entering a room, to reshoot every line to make sure it’s perfect and to wear her stage costumes at all times. With each outburst, it becomes harder to tell whether St. Vincent is performing this persona out of spite or if Annie’s truly losing herself, which Carrie finds both distressing and intriguing as she keeps the camera rolling. Though this pseudo-rockstar behavior is a trope that audiences have seen before, St. Vincent and Carrie carefully reveal these patterns to be a subversion of the expectations put onto them as artists. We see these pressures manifest in scenes toward the beginning of the film, like when an acerbic music critic demands free tickets to St. Vincent’s concert and then complains about how rude the singer is while sitting in on
dress rehearsal. Similarly, Brownstein’s father occasionally checks in with her to both congratulate her on her first directing gig and remind her that this is a job he can finally boast about to his friends. Even the people closest to these women feel entitled to their time and energy simply because they’re performers. Therefore, both women have equal reasons to be insecure despite their onslaught of success. So when Brownstein snaps at her friend, St. Vincent has ammo to fire back — which she does by coldly neglecting her throughout her meltdown. As rich as this premise may be, “The Nowhere Inn” actually predicates most of its impact on its aesthetics and influences. From Lynchian dream sequences of winding roads to dynamic concert footage scattered throughout the feature, each shot is more enticing than the last. Brownstein and Clark also pull out of the “Portlandia” handbook for some masterful sequences of absurd humor, including a bizarre detour through Texan Americana where St. Vincent adopts a fake family to pose in front of the camera, or when Carrie is forced to record St. Vincent and her girlfriend artificially writhing around in a hotel bed. St. Vincent remains apathetic and regal throughout the myriad of hijinks while Brownstein awkwardly leers in the corner, which is an infectious dynamic that may cement the two as the next best female comedy duo. Unfortunately, this deconstruction of fame and female friendship starts to wither
further into the runtime. A major narrative shortcoming is the film’s failure to establish who Brownstein and St. Vincent truly are outside of the madness. It’s stated throughout the film that St. Vincent is a very private person, and this mockumentary seemed like a way to retain autonomy while divulging honesty about her own life. However, we never actually get a picture of who St. Vincent is outside of being a musician or Brownstein’s disappointing muse. Brownstein also gets the short end of the stick, as her relationship with her father is only alluded to and never resolved. The film simply doesn’t have a center to hold onto as chaos ensues, thus becoming a parody of a subject the audience doesn’t understand. Despite the lack of a finite conclusion, “The Nowhere Inn” is a brazen piece of experimentation that never dares to bore the viewer. It’s a disappointment that the St. Vincent and Carrie Brownstein characters that the two women wrote for themselves only feel like esoteric pawns within their more ambitious metacinematic experience. However, even though this might seem like a risky watch for audience members unfamiliar with Brownstein or Clark’s quirky oeuvres, seeing two creatives swing and thrash around this hard might be worth the trip. Contact Isabella Armus at iarmus@nyunews.com
NYU, reverse the ban on in-person performing arts clubs By SASHA COHEN Arts Editor Put yourself in an NYU student’s shoes. You love choreographing with Pulse Dance Project, singing an alto harmony for the N’Harmonics, performing sketches for Friends with Dads or delivering a monologue for an Uproar Theatre Corps production. After missing a year and a half of these opportunities due to the pandemic and remote learning, you experience the excitement of three weeks of in-person rehearsals at the start of the fall 2021 semester. Every note is perfectly in tune, each step flows into the next, the jokes tickle audiences’ throats. Sure, there is an abundance of performing arts classes to take at the university, but nothing replaces the spirit, camaraderie and hands-on experience of arts clubs. Having regained the joy of rehearsing in person again, imagine receiving the following email from NYU Engage on Sept. 22. “After much discussion with University officials ... performance based student organizations (e.g., singing, dancing, acting, wind instruments) and fitness based organizations (e.g., Jiu Jitsu, quidditch) will not be permitted to practice or perform in-person, for the time being,” the email reads. “In-person performing arts will only be permitted in connection to academic courses.” This policy is inconsistent, hypocritical and inconsiderate. If NYU senior leadership truly understood students’ values and experiences, they would recognize that this policy is simply nonsensical. While the university attempts to demonstrate its care for students’ safety by keeping COVID-19 transmission rates low, the decision seems like a misguided effort that promotes inequality among the student body. In an email sent on Sept. 21, NYU senior leadership boasted that 99% of students are fully vaccinated, shared that the university has a 1.39% positivity rate and claimed that classroom transmission is minimal. High vaccination rates and COVID-19 safety precautions are reasons for which students and faculty can attend class in person without social distancing. Thanks to these high rates, NYU first-years attended an a cappella show-
case and Drag Bingo in the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts with hundreds of their peers. If this many students can get all cozy yelling “bingo!” or singing songs about safety, why can’t a 12-person improv group rehearse outside with masks? NYU allows music, dance and performance-based classes to congregate with masks on. But when performing arts clubs — which do similar shows, combinations and scores — want to hold in-person rehearsals with the same safety precautions, the administration finds the situation unsafe, suggesting that a faculty member need be present to supervise people’s singing, dancing or acting. University senior leadership is sending the message that it does not trust its students to keep each other safe and prevent the spread of COVID-19. In other words, this policy demands one thing NYU students are too old for: babysitters. The university’s policy currently affects numerous organizations and individuals across NYU’s schools, but students are learning about the rule at different times; some do not know that such a policy exists at all because the university has yet to inform them. I received notice on Sept. 22, but Steinhardt senior and Co-President of Composers’ Collective Noah Horowitz first heard about the policy on Oct. 1. What upset Horowitz was that he does not want to host large-scale events, but rather wants to sing with his guitar for a small audience. “Most music students at NYU regularly sing with masks and without distancing,” Horowitz said. “This is allowed in class, but now my club can’t have even one masked person sing distanced away from the audience at a concert.” The student’s experience illustrates one of NYU’s policies involving masks in performing arts classes. In an email sent to Tisch students on Sept. 29, the school’s Office of Student Affairs disclosed that students can also apply to not wear masks in class. “If you would like to be approved to remove your mask in one of the pre-approved academic-related activities outlined in Specific Guidelines, please submit this mask removal approval request form,” the email reads. “As a reminder, this approval is only granted
to fully-vaccinated students in acting, voice, wind, and brass who wish to remove masks.” In the specific guidelines mentioned in the email, performing arts classes do not have to socially distance as long as they are vaccinated and wear masks. The opportunity to be maskless in class is only allowed for brief periods of time. Having read these guidelines, I believe asking to host a performance-based club meeting with masks is in line with university policy and is a more than reasonable request. I could not discuss this policy without mentioning that NYU NCAA sports teams are allowed to practice in person and to travel to compete. What is the difference between a sweaty basketball player panting for air as she passes a ball around the court and a dancer rehearsing a routine? I genuinely struggle to see the difference between the two. Both are physical and involve large groups of people. Regardless of the conflicting COVID-19 guidelines between performing arts classes and clubs, there is one important element that NYU’s senior leadership fails to acknowledge. Music, drama, dance and comedy might seem like cute pastimes for students to participate in outside of class, but they are actually an extension of students’ education. Yes, one can learn the fundamentals of an artistic discipline in class, but where can one apply these skills in a safe and independent environment? Performing arts extracurriculars allow students the opportunity to have hands-on experiences that can simulate professional work. Participants learn how to collaborate with others, multitask and think on their feet, in addition to many other valuable skills. Even though students can host rehearsals on Zoom, the experience is neither nearly as valuable nor a realistic representation of how the industry functions in a world without COVID-19 — something students must witness before entering the workforce. Even if some students do not view extracurriculars as part of their education, senior leadership should at least recognize that clubs are an integral part of the college experience. Extracurriculars are where students who share mutual interests forge friendships, memories and connections. Having spent a year and a half of college on Zoom, NYU
NIKA WOODFILL | WSN
On Sept. 22, University officials made the decision to ban NYU’s performing arts clubs from meeting in person for the time being. This decision creates confusion when considering that most of NYU’s activities take place in person.
students have lost and suffered enough. Who is senior leadership to take more away from them, especially when the rest of the world is shifting back to pre-pandemic life? The most aggravating part of the new policy is NYU’s usage of the phrase “for the time being” in the initial email announcement sent Sept. 22. “For the time being” is vague. Alongside having to cancel all of their plans, students are left wondering whether this rule will be in effect for a month, the semester or the entire academic school year. Without specific information, how is anyone supposed to develop a new plan for the semester, create schedules or build budgets? Steinhardt senior and president of Pulse Dance Project Jordan Lopez is one of many students whose club had no choice but to scrap all of its plans and resort to Zoom — a move that is not a replacement for being in person. “The ban on in-person rehearsals for performing arts clubs has impacted Pulse a great amount,” Lopez said. “The email from club life completely blindsided us, we had spent so much time and energy working on how we could find space to dance and now everything we were working on was basically for nothing... The whole point of our club is
to be an outlet for people to dance, especially because most of us are not dance majors. This news has been very upsetting for all of our club members and this semester will be hard with trying to keep the morale and energy of Pulse up while we are still stuck with zoom rehearsals.” Between in-person classes, sold-out Broadway productions, packed musical festivals, and other venues and events slowly easing COVID-19 restrictions, NYU senior leadership’s policy is uncalled for. Such a decision illuminates how leadership practices favoritism that benefits classes and sports teams to assure that the university has high enrollment rates, maintains its high rankings and earns consistent positive PR. However, if leadership chooses to remain complacent on an issue that impacts a large portion of students at an elite performing arts school, it is guaranteed that NYU will have worries aside from COVID-19 transmission rates come the application deadline for prospective students.
Contact Sasha Cohen at scohen@nyunews.com
Washington Square News
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MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2021
CULTURE
Edited by SABRINA CHOUDHARY
Ranked: NYC nature By ALEX TEY Deputy Managing Editor Are you tired of pretending that the trees in Washington Square Park are a forest? Want to return to the wilderness? Well, you’re more or less out of luck. New York City is pretty much entirely developed, and even natural-seeming areas are managed and cultivated by humans. That doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy nature, though — there are fantastic natural areas within reach that’ll let you escape the noise and chaos of downtown. Central Park is a great place to start, sure, but you deserve better than that tourist trap (even if it is a genuinely beautiful tourist trap). There are better places to experience a sense of the outdoors — if a place is green on Google Maps, it’s worth checking out. We’re ranking New York City parks based on accessibility by transit and the value you get for your travel time. If you have access to a car, you have to get to Breezy Point Tip (Queens), Mount Loretto Unique Area (Staten Island) and Floyd Bennett Field (Brooklyn) — they feel more wild than anything on this list. For our purposes here, though, we’re going to be focusing on places you can get to by public transit from the NYU campus. 5. Shirley Chisholm State Park Shirley Chisholm State Park is an impressive example of what environmental restoration can look like. Formerly the site of two city landfills, extensive restoration work over multiple decades created a landscape that resembles a wild grassland. Native species that grow in the park attract butterflies, moths and grassland birds, as well as human visitors. The park feels like what a native grassland is meant to be. If you stand in the right spot, you can pretend that the park was always this picturesque and not a reclaimed landfill. Like Floyd Bennett Field, though, it’s hard to get to without a car or a lot of persistence with public transit, so it ranks lowest on this list. Still, I couldn’t not mention it — it’s legitimately exciting that a place like this even exists (check out Fresh Kills Park in Staten Island, too), so if you can make the trip, you absolutely should. Directions from campus: Take the D train to Atlantic Avenue Barclays Center in Brooklyn and then switch to the 4 train. Ride the 4 until you arrive at Utica Avenue and then transfer to the B-17 bus. Take the bus to Seaview Avenue, then walk for 31 minutes until you reach the park. Good luck. 4. Prospect Park: the Ravine Like its better-known cousin Central Park, most of Prospect Park isn’t as natural as it looks. It was constructed in the mid1800s after the success of Central Park, and continues to be heavily cultivated. Nevertheless, it does feature Brooklyn’s only remaining forest: a 250-acre stretch of woods that starts at the Vale of Cashmere and extends through the Ravine to Quaker Cemetery and Lookout Hill. Though the true old-growth trees are long gone, the Ravine still feels like a real forest. A creek babbles under stone bridges. The canopy shades the paths in verdant green during the summer and dazzles with color in the fall. Climb steep trails and hillside stairs to get a taste of hiking, or stroll the sloping paths to take in the quiet of the woods. On the western edge of the Ravine, two
ALEX TEY | WSN
While NYC has remained a busy city for decades, wilderness is not a scarce resource here. Parks scattered throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn are perfect epitomes of nature waiting to be explored.
small ponds host ducks, geese and herons. Keep an eye out during migration seasons in spring and fall for songbirds gleaning insects from the leaves. Though it’s a haven for both wildlife and human visitors, this park doesn’t rank highly on this list because of how crowded it can get, even in the deepest depths of the Ravine. Directions from campus: Take the Q (14 St - Union Square or 8 Street) or the B (W 4th St - Wash Sq) to the Prospect Park station. 3. Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge This one’s a bit of a trek, but you won’t find anything like it anywhere else in New York City. Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is situated on a narrow strip of land connecting mainland Long Island and the Rockaways, so it’s surrounded almost entirely by water. Created in the 1950s, the refuge offers woods, marshes, and two large freshwater ponds enclosed from the bay. It’s part of the Gateway National Recreation Area and is maintained by the National Park Service. The East and West Ponds provide habitat to migrating ducks, shorebirds and songbirds such as warblers and flycatchers allowing them to refuel in the wooded areas. Mute Swans — invasive but beautiful — can be seen around the West Pond, as well as native waterfowl. Make sure to stay clear of territorial Red-winged Blackbirds and Canada Geese during spring and summer. On the east side, you can explore grassy
paths through thickly wooded areas that lead to a broad view of the pond. Don’t forget bug spray, and consider sticking to the south side of the East Pond during mosquito season — I’ve collected plenty of bug bites further to the north. A loop trail encircles the West Pond, but check at the visitor center or online before entering, as it’s sometimes closed off for maintenance. When the trail is open, it’s the best way for first-time visitors to explore the wildlife refuge — it takes you through the forest and past both freshwater and saltwater habitats. You’ll be able to enjoy wildlife in a way that you can’t anywhere else in the city. Directions from campus: Take the A (W 4th St - Wash Sq) to Rockaway Blvd and transfer to the Q52-SBS or Q53-SBS bus to Cross Bay Blvd/Wildlife Refuge, or just take the A to Broad Channel and walk about 20 minutes to the wildlife refuge. 2. Pelham Bay Park The largest park in New York City stands far ahead of the rest when it comes to habitat, wildlife and general wildness. The only reason that it doesn’t come first on this list is because it’s hard to get to from campus. Even though the 6 train stop is named after the park, it’s not that close to the park itself. In the summer, a city bus gets you the rest of the way, but after Labor Day you have to get creative with alternate bus routes via City Island or embark on foot to the park from the train station. It might feel far, but it won’t take you
much longer than walking the length of the greater NYU campus from Union Square to Houston Street. Once you’re there, you’ll feel like you’re out of the city. People say that a lot about lesser parks, but it holds true for Pelham Bay Park. The park offers every habitat found in the region — forests, open water, saltmarsh, intertidal shoreline, wetlands — and supports a broad variety of wildlife. Rabbits and deer are ubiquitous, of course, but you can also spot coyotes and even foxes at the crepuscular hours. Pelham Bay Park is also a haven for birds and has much more extensive habitat for visiting owls in the winter than the other parks on this list. Walk the boardwalk from Orchard Beach to Hunter Island (which is really more of a peninsula) to explore the most beautiful wooded trails in the park. From the shore there, you can look out into the Long Island Sound at the islands that surround the park. Directions from campus: Take the 6 (14 St - Union Sq or Astor Pl) to the end of the line at the Pelham Bay Park station and take the Eastchester 0045 bus or walk about 25 minutes to the park. In the summer, take the Bx12 bus from the 6 train. 1. Inwood Hill Park This gem of a park is located at the northernmost tip of Manhattan. It’ll make you forget that you’re still on the same noisy island you started on.
It contains all the best parts of Central Park in one place, with a more diverse landscape — the park features 200-year-old tulip trees, Hudson River views and steep cliffs — it even contains fragments of original oldgrowth forest. Check out the Ridge Trail and the Clove area in particular. In the Clove, you can also see the so-called Indian Caves, a series of rock formations used as a seasonal camp by the Lenape people. Fall and spring bring spectacular bird migrations to the dense forest, especially fast-flitting, colorful warblers. In summer, listen for the ethereal song of the Wood Thrush echoing through the woods of the Clove — one of the only places in Manhattan where the species breeds. The pier at Muscota Marsh is the most likely spot to see Sealy, a beloved local harbor seal. Keep an eye out in the winter for Eastern Screech-Owls roosting in tree cavities, and larger owls like Barred Owl and Great Horned Owl high on tree branches. The park also offers baseball fields, soccer fields and tennis courts in athletic facilities that are harder to find in Lower Manhattan. Best of all, this one isn’t even hard to get to — it’s just 40 minutes from Washington Square on the A train. Directions from campus: Take the A (W 4th St - Wash Sq) to the end of the line at 207 St. Contact Alex Tey at atey@nyunews.com
Washington Square News | Under the arch
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2021
UNDERTHEARCH@NYUNEWS.COM
UNDER THE ARCH
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Edited by JULIAN HAMMOND SANTANDER
How can NYC(U) be your personality if you’ve only been to Manhattan?
TAYLOR KNIGHT | WSN
Grand Central Terminal (day)
By TAYLOR KNIGHT Deputy Exposures Editor Maybe I’m being a bit narcissistic but I choose to believe it’s my recently discovered nature as a Native New Yorker™ that leads me to utterly despise locals. If you don’t know what that means let me open your eyes. “Locals: People who live in your city that have no personality, bland, and like anything that’s mainstream. They think they’re quirky for whatever they do, but in reality are blended in with other locals.” - Urban Dictionary Synonyms: posers, basic people, NYU students, St*rnies I added the last few. Now this is by no means an indictment of all NYU students but we do have a reputation among the actual people who live here as being ignorant gentrifiers who come here for a big-city Instagram feed and everything bagels everyday. This brings us back to the beginning of this article. In my quest to
both avoid locality and embrace locality – in the traditional sense – I sought to climb up, down and all around the city. This journey naturally led me to the subject of this piece: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Unfortunately the MTA is often treated like New York’s own personal Regina George — popular yet widely disliked, mean and truly disgusting. However there’s truly so much more to the MTA once you take full advantage of all it has to offer. Once you get to know it, you realize that this shallow comparison to a pop culture character does this truly amazing transportation system a great dishonor. The MTA is the most consistent yet kaleidoscopic part of New York City. Each station is uniquely decorated and laced with stories of the millions who ride the trains each day. In a lot of ways the MTA is it’s own in-between world connecting the distinctive parts of New York from the sun-soaked beaches of Rockaway Beach to the grimy dystopia
of Penn Station. The MTA is the vein that keeps NYC alive. It’s been a year since I was first introduced to the MTA. I’ve been as far up as Fordham Road and all the way down Coney Island. I can only hope that I’ve lost some of my NYU-branded ignorance and really explored the city, and now I’d like to share my experience. Since there are almost three generations of first-year students on campus – as a result of the pandemic – I’d love to introduce everyone to a few important stations through my eyes. The first station to be featured is Eighth Street-NYU. As cliche this may be, this station is incredibly important because it’s the closest to Washington Square Park and it features NYU-themed images. The only issue with this station is the train lines themselves: the N and R. These lines are fairly Brooklyn/ Queens-centric — but they offer Manhattanites a quick escape route off the island. The second closest station to Washing-
ton Square Park is Astor Place and line 6. While this one is a bit farther from campus and lacks the NYU images, line 6 is perhaps the most important local line for east siders. It has access to stations in the heart of Little Italy, Chinatown, SoHo, Union Square Park, Grand Central Terminal, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Bridge. Essentially Astor Place gives on-campus students access to Manhattan’s greatest hits for the price of $2.75 without transferring. The Fulton Street station is to Tandonites as Astor Place is to Washington Square Park students – except much larger and extravagant. It features a giant oculus through the roof and is the main connection point between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Plus it has enough connections to the west side of NYC to add to its importance. The final important station is perhaps the most iconic train station in the world: New York’s very own Grand Central Terminal. This beautiful station gives you access to
Midtown, the Upper East side and Upper West side through the S-line (42nd Street Shuttle) from Bryant Park to Times Square. It also has lines 4,5 and 6 straight through making it possible to travel from Grand Central to Eighth Street in about 10 minutes. On a wider scale, the possibilities blossom. Grand Central Terminal is the final station on the Metro-North train system, meaning you have access to the entire tri-state area all the way to New Haven. The Long Island Rail Road is even expanding into the station so Grand Central Terminal will soon encompass routes to the entire Long Island area. While it’s important to emphasize the utility of the MTA as a crossroads between areas of New York City, I think that the legitimate beauty and uniqueness of each station’s designs are amazing and add even more character to an already impressive city. Contact Taylor Knight at tknight@nyunews.com
Washington Square News
6
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2021
OPINION
OPINION@NYUNEWS.COM
Edited by KEVIN KURIAN and ASHA RAMACHANDRAN
CITY
STAFF EDITORIAL
Opinion: NYU should expand institutional financial aid for transfer students
NYU must expand virtual attendance options
ALEX TRAN | WSN
383 Lafayette St. houses the Office of the Bursar, which deals with student financial aid. When it comes to financial aid allocation, transfer students are at a great disadvantage.
By MORGAN CARAMELLO Staff Writer It is a university’s responsibility to care for its students, but transfer students at NYU are often left with their financial needs unmet. NYU, which boasts a whopping $4.7 billion endowment as of August 2020, charges a colossal tuition of $56,500 a year, not including the cost of housing, transportation, insurance or food. It fails, however, to offer a majority of transfer students adequate institutional financial aid. This shortcoming makes transferring to NYU inaccessible for many students unless they take on a crippling amount of debt and punishes students financially for not choosing NYU the first time around. Transfers make up about 10% of NYU’s student population, but their access to aid is minimal. Unless they are eligible for CCTOP, the GUIDE Program or the POISE Program, or are enrolled in a Second Degree Transfer Program in the Rory Meyers College of Nursing, transfers are denied access to institutional tuition support. A majority of transfer students — an appalling two-thirds — do not receive institutional grant aid, according to university spokesperson John Beckman. Federal aid aid, such as Pell Grants, is an option for some students. However, the maximum award available for the 2021-22 academic year is $6,495, which only covers 11.5% of NYU’s tuition. Transfer students will leave university and enter the working world as NYU alumni, but they are not viewed as equal to traditional students by the NYU administration — especially the Office of Financial Aid. On the NYU undergraduate admissions page, subheadings in bold text read “Affording New York University.” Directly underneath, a box reads “Discover Financial Aid,” which leads to explanations of financial aid and payment options. However, the page
Submitting to
displaying transfer student requirements offers far less material. It falls to transfer students to inquire about financial aid, a process that requires significant effort. At the very least, there should be a disclaimer or some sort of fine print — like on those medication commercials or grocery store coupons — saying something like “Warning: This institution contains elitism and is for trust fund transfer students only.” Across the country, transfer students tend to receive less aid from universities. According to the 2015-16 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, students in bachelor’s degree programs who change schools are granted $4,701 less in institutional aid on average — 42% less than first-years — and are 12.3% less likely to receive such aid. In NYU’s case, they’re the most likely to receive no aid. Compounding these financial burdens, the median national household income decreased from $69,560 to $67,521 between 2019 and 2020. Despite this economic downturn, NYU increased its tuition by 3%. NYU’s financial aid is supposedly allocated according to each student’s “financial need and academic strength.” But transfer students with financial difficulties are overlooked by the administration. In December 2019, the Affordability Steering Committee and Working Group published a report titled “A Presidential Commitment to Affordability,” in which the Momentum Campaign was detailed. The campaign, which raised almost $1.3 billion for scholarships, exceeded its goal by $300 million. The overshoot could have been used to make institutional financial aid accessible to all transfer students in need, but it was not. Transferring schools is an arduous process. The possibility of losing credits, the unknown costs of attending a new institution and the uncertainty of how long it might take to finish one’s degree cause transfer students a great amount of anxiety. The university’s lack of financial support for transfer students is an additional source of stress. NYU should increase the amount of financial aid available to transfer students. It is within the university’s means to do so, and every student deserves a financially accessible and quality education. Contact Morgan Caramello at opinion@nyunews.com
MANAAL SHAREH | WSN
Students in a classroom attend classes with limited safety precautions. NYU needs to provide virtual class options for students who cannot attend campus due to COVID-19 safety precautions.
By WSN EDITORIAL BOARD Students received some revolutionary advice from a wise and ever-helpful NYU Returns email on Sept. 30: Stay home if they feel sick and report symptoms to the NYU COVID-19 Prevention and Response Team. While this statement is factual and should be followed, NYU’s lack of remote learning options incentivizes students to disregard this advice. At present, NYU courses are not required to offer virtual options. WSN’s reporting has illustrated the difficulties that students with disabilities face when requesting remote accommodations. NYU Tandon’s website states that “accomodations for remote access will be limited.” This could force people with symptoms of COVID-19 to attend in-person classes, fearful of lowered grades and other negative consequences of missing class. If someone cannot or should not physically attend classes, they should have the option to attend virtually. NYU must create a universal virtual learning option to serve the student body and protect public health. Unfortunately, NYU’s return to in-person classes has not factored in the possibility of contagious students attending classes. WSN reporting demonstrates that in-person classes, especially within the Cantor Film Center, leave no possibility for social distancing and put students in high-density environments. The university administration has cited NYU’s high vaccination rates as a reason to return to normalcy, but all it takes is one breakthrough case for this policy to have potentially fatal consequences. As vaccines lose efficacy over time, it is essential that we take the necessary precautions to stop the spread of COVID-19 and prevent needless risk to our student body. New COVID-19 variants that are more resistant to vaccines are emerging, including the Lambda and
Mu variants. The Mu variant, in particular, has been detected in all 50 U.S. states and has higher transmissibility and greater resistance to antibodies. Although vaccinations still prevent serious illness and complications, with rising cases of vaccine-resistant variants, additional safety measures and accommodations are increasingly necessary, especially for vulnerable NYU community members. There are more than 3,500 NYU students with a disability as of 2019. Every single one is failed by NYU’s existing lack of remote learning options. The lives of immunocompromised students are put at risk because of the incentive for sick kids to come into class. People with existing health problems are more vulnerable to COVID-19 and at higher risk for severe complications. The negative effects of COVID-19 can also persist long after an individual is free of the virus. Over a third of COVID-19 patients have “longCOVID,” where symptoms last for 3-6 months — or longer — after the initial diagnosis. NYU’s existing policies place students at risk of disability or even death. Moreover, there’s little information on how long long COVID symptoms last. Therefore, while we learn more about COVID-19’s long-term impacts on the body, virtual learning should remain an option for anyone who is concerned about contracting the virus. It’s not as if virtual learning would be an enormous burden on NYU. Over the course of two weeks in March of 2020, NYU’s courses moved entirely to Zoom and remained there for two more semesters — for over a year, every course was offered virtually. All a professor needs in order to offer a virtual option is a computer with Zoom installed. A virtual option imposes no financial burden on campus administration and it should be offered for all students as soon as possible.
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We are telling big stories — the Bling Ring, Venmo fraud, drug donkeys — ones that expanded past our printstandard 500 words, ones that paint pictures with words. This magazine aims to be a platform where undergraduate and graduate students alike can mutter on about their love of the blue-seated MTA trains or put into words the flavor of their love of grandma’s dumplings.
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