From Publishers Weekly
In March 1983, fire gutted a building on Riverside Drive owned by Columbia University, disrupting the lives of 24 families and badly damaging the apartment of the author, also a resident in the building. Using the events surrounding the fire as her main example, Schwartz sets out to establish the negative effect of Columbia's housing policy on the Morningside Heights area. The larger issue of the university's responsibility to "non-affiliated" tenants and neighbors, however, is lost in a wealth of detail about the lives of the occupants of the gutted Riverside Drive building. Though well documented with court transcripts, quotes from the Columbia Housing administrators, first hand accounts of the fire, etc., this book is more the story of an individual tragedy than an exploration of the neighborhood's problems. Schwartz raises valid points about the conflict between the university's need for student and faculty housing, and the community's need for an identity separate from Columbia's. Unfortunately, these points are not given the attention and space which their importance demands. November 6
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In March 1983 an apartment building owned by Columbia University suf fered extensive fire damage. While the university viewed the fire as an oppor tunity to remodel the building into a dormitory, the tenants, most of them not university affiliates, sought to re gain their apartments. Novelist Schwartz was one of those tenants. She lends personal perspective on the issue of a university's role in the local com munity. The book's best parts are the vivid descriptions of the texture of New York apartment life. These segments are juxtaposed with details (too many) of the endless legal and bureaucratic wrangling which ensued. Most readers may be less interested in the suits and countersuits than in the relationships between tenants. An optional purchase for public libraries and other libraries with urban planning collections. Diane K. Harvey, SAIS Lib., Johns Hopkins Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
