Columbia’s genius pool
More than a decade ago, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, knowing one of the world’s greatest research universities was hemmed in with no place to grow, envisioned a new campus on the low-slung, sparsely populated blocks west of Broadway between 125th and 133rd Sts.
The first building of that West Harlem-Manhattanville campus is now complete.
It’s brilliantly built, thanks to architect Renzo Piano, and there’s brilliance inside too. It will house what Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman founded four years ago, with a $200 million gift: the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.
Headed by two Nobel laureates, it delves deep into that rapidly evolving realm of human biology, one where great mysteries remain but remarkable discoveries are coming into focus.
Soon to be under one roof will be 800 scientists and 56 labs, occupying the entirety of the largest building ever constructed by Columbia in its 262 years. Co-director Thomas Jessel says that he’ll have the smallest office in the place, with many conference rooms meant to foster collaboration and spontaneous cooperation across disciplines.
The plan: Let ideas germinate and sparks catch fire as researchers explore.
At Monday’s inauguration ceremony, Eric Kandel, one of the founding Nobel laureates — and the world’s leading expert on the science of memory — put it elegantly.
Everything in a university, he said, from languages to history to mathematics to law, is about the mind. The new center’s goal is to gain a greater understanding of the brain — from how it works to why and when it fails, attacked by Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other cruel diseases.
Columbia’s remaking of Manhattanville, itself a testament to the brain’s imagination, is only beginning. Next to the new science hub is a new art center, and rising nearby is a lecture hall. Two new business-school towers will stand just to the north.
When Bollinger started showing his models for a new campus, there were protests and screaming. Bollinger answered every critic, responded to every charge.
On the vast 17 acres, there were only 132 residential units in a few walkups. Columbia bought every one out. The university then built a new elevator apartment building about 10 blocks away; the residents could buy the apartments for basically nothing, $250.
At a time when shortsighted NIMBYism is upending planned developments, Manhattanville stands as an object lesson on what is possible when genuine vision carries the day.