This Columbia Daily Spectator investigation examines the human cost of the university's Manhattanville campus expansion — and how, years after the 2008 groundbreaking, residents continue to be displaced from the neighborhood that now partially houses Columbia's newest buildings.
David Hanzal is featured as a central community voice: a man who fought his own displacement battle from 2014 to 2018, and now watches new tenants walk through the same door at P.A.L.A.N.T.E. with the same look of disbelief he once wore.
Before the Manhattanville expansion, Columbia was simply "over there," David has said in prior interviews, gesturing toward the Morningside Heights campus. The university's move into Manhattanville made its presence — and its economic impact — impossible to ignore.
In 2007, the NYC Department of City Planning published a Final Environmental Impact Statement forecasting that by 2030, the satellite campus would attract roughly 3,362 University-affiliated residents within a half-mile radius. That influx was projected to put as many as 1,318 housing units "at-risk" — meaning existing residents would face upward rent pressure and potential involuntary displacement.
As part of the 2007 Community Benefits Agreement, Columbia committed $20 million to an Affordable Housing Fund — but as of early 2018, only 1% of that fund had been spent.
A further $76 million Benefits Fund was designated for distribution to West Harlem nonprofits, with housing support services receiving just 4% of grants between 2011 and 2017 — compared to 32% for education and 10% for workforce programs.
P.A.L.A.N.T.E. — the tenant advocacy organization David has worked with extensively — received approximately $218,000 through 2017, a modest figure given the scale of displacement the organization was being asked to combat.
What makes David's perspective so striking in this 2018 article is the recognition that his own hard-won fight — three years of housing court, organizing, press conferences, and legal action — did not stop the cycle. It ended for him, partially, but the same forces that targeted his building at 3149 Broadway were moving on to the next block, the next building, the next family.
Private equity landlords who purchased rent-stabilized buildings during the height of Columbia's expansion pressure have continued their displacement strategies. As one building's long-term tenants are pushed out and units convert to market rate, the financial incentive for the next landlord in the next building only grows stronger.
"He walks in, he says, 'I've organized my building, I've done 311, I don't know what to do, the landlord's doing this.' He's got a long road ahead of him. You know, he's where I was in 2014." — David Hanzal on a new tenant who came to P.A.L.A.N.T.E. for help, October 2018
The Spectator's investigation is ultimately a question about institutional accountability and the long arc of gentrification. Columbia acknowledged the risk of displacement when it pursued the Manhattanville expansion — and made formal commitments to mitigate it. But as of 2018, those commitments remained largely unfulfilled.
Meanwhile, David Hanzal — who fought his way through 20+ housing court appearances, organized his neighbors, and helped win legal action against one of New York's most notorious predatory landlords — sits at P.A.L.A.N.T.E. and sees the next chapter of the same story beginning again.
The neighborhood is changing. The buildings are renovated. The old tenants are mostly gone. And a new generation of Harlem residents is learning what David learned in 2014: that in New York City, if you have affordable housing, there is a target on your back — and you'd better know how to fight back.