University of Virginia Library

History, Issues Of Columbia Riot Viewed

Copyright, Steven Leichter, 1968

This is the second in a series on
the recent disturbances at Columbia
University.

For decades, everyone at Columbia
had agreed that the school
needed a new gymnasium. The
old gym was originally set up as a
temporary facility, but was never
replaced. It had a swimming pool
that lacked splash gutters, and a
basketball arena which accommodates
fewer than two thousand
spectators, many plagued by an
obstructed view. This run-down
structure had endured for three
reasons: administrative inefficiency
and lack of funds; alumni disinterest
or disorganization; and Ivy
League athletics. Probably, the last
factor was the most influential.

The spirit of Ivy League athletic
regulations, which discouraged recruiting
athletes and forbid participation
in any post-season exhibition
games except for sanctioned
NCAA championships, was meant
to relegate inter-collegiate athletics
to the same status as that of any
other school extra-curricular
activity. This attitude toward athletics
was a reaction to the many
college sports scandals which were
discovered throughout the country,
(including at Columbia), during the
early 1950s. For the most part,
Ivy League member schools observed
these rules, both in letter
and in spirit, for seven or eight
years. Except for a few, special
sports, Ivy League athletics consequently
declined in quality and
national prestige. But in the early
1960's some schools, notably
Princeton and Dartmouth, began
to re-emphasize their athletic progames.
This renewed interest was
especially noted in the so-called
"major sports," football and
basketball. To be sure, they did
not violate any league rules in
building better teams, but they did
utilize some loopholes in the regulations
and did give sports increased
attention. The effect of this
upgrading of intercollegiate athletics
on student morale and alumni
interest was not lost on other Ivy
colleges. Previously secure
coaches, whose teams compiled
poor records, were or
resigned, first at Cornell, then at
Penn and Brown. By the fall of
1965, this sentiment was rising at
Columbia, too. Fans, watching a
51-6 loss to Brown in football
began to change "Buff (Donelli,
the football coach), must go!"
and the undergraduate newspaper,
"Spectator" ran a feature editorial
using that cry as its title. However,
alumni criticism of Columbia
athletics had already increased,
with effect, and well over a year
before the administration had announced
plans to construct a new
gym.

Columbia had two options on
where to build the proposed gym.
It had steadily been acquiring
much of the land surrounding the
campus on Morningside Heights
in preparation for a needed general
expansion of school facilities. Part
of this land could have easily been
assigned to the new gym. However,
community sentiment against
Columbia was strong. Morningside
residents felt aggrieved at the often
arbitrary tactics the University
used to tenants from buildings
it had bought. (In fact, one
of the causes of in its infancy
was the unjust methods the University
employed to oust its new
tenants, and this protest, which
was peacefully conducted, was
somewhat justified). Considering
this ill will against it throughout
the Morningside community,
Columbia chose an alternative
which the City of New York made
available. It decided to build the
gym in Morningside Park.

There is one asset, and only one
asset this park boasts as a park.
Over-all it is a beautiful tract of
land. A flat, well-kept baseball
field, run by Columbia for its
students and Harlem children, lies
at its southeastern end. Rising
behind this field is a rocky, imposing
cliff, crowned by undeveloped
woodland. However,
as a functional recreational facility,
the park is almost worthless. The
northeastern portion of the tract
contains a few playground enclosures
which the New York Parks
Department neglectfully maintains.
Obviously, the cliffs serve
solely as a visual treat, but in
Harlem that is not to be disdained.
And the less developed
and less frequented park areas are
fertile grounds for the work of
muggers, robbers, and other criminals.

New York City agreed to lease
part of the upper, woodland area
to Columbia as its gym site. In
return, Columbia was obliged to
pay $3000 per annum, to provide
extra athletic facilities for
neighborhood children, and to staff
these facilities free of charge to
the city or the children who used
them. Later, the University revised
these plans by offering to build
a separate gym, including tracks,
basketball courts, and a swimming
pool, at the base of the cliff,
under the students' gym at its
summit.

When the agreement was announced,
Columbia was praised by
local community leaders for its
admirable change of attitude and
new-found spirit of citizenship.
Although the choice of site meant
that the gym would be smaller
than hoped for, (the basketball
arena was given 4400 seats instead
of the seven thousand requested),
and certainly more expensive
than a structure outside
the park, members of the University
reacted favorably, too. At
the time, no one disputed the plans
for the reasons they would eventually

be attacked, and fund
raising began uneventfully.

The first criticism was not voiced
for two years. Nor was it raised
by any member of the University,
student or faculty, but by a Manhattan
state assemblyman, Percy
Sutton. Sutton is an articulate,
liberal Negro legislator who enjoys
wide respect which is often
deserved. He called on the outgoing
Wagner mayoral administration
in New York City to cancel
the contract with Columbia, because
the gym site was discriminatory
to the Harlem community.
The use of park land, he said,
would deprive the community of
some much-needed recreational
territory. He also threatened to
push a bill outlawing the contract
through the New York
State Legislature if Mayor Wagner
took no action. Although no
action was taken by Wagner, Sutton
realized that this course offered
little chance of success because the
contract was legally unassailable.
However, he found a prestigious
supporter in the Parks Commissioner
Thomas Hoving of the
succeeding city administration of
John Lindsay. Hoving agreed with
Sutton's objections and added one
of his own: the gym would deface
a beautiful park and it was
therefore unsuitable for that site.

The instigation of these two city
leaders was in reality the spark
of the unfortunate protest which
followed years later. Gradually,
other Harlem politicians began to
reconsider their praise of the gym
site and retracted it. Yet, neither
the Columbia faculty nor student
body significantly joined in this
protest until the Spring and Fall
of 1967. Then, SDS, having received
no wide base of support
for its NROTC campaign, and
having found too much agreement
at Columbia to its objections
to the Vietnam War, turned its
attention to the proposed gym.

For a time, the protest ran as
most other SDS efforts did. Numerous
speeches were made, picket
lines marched, and hundreds of
pounds of literature were distributed.
However, this time SDS
had seized upon a more propitious
opportunity for an incident. According
to a recent issue of "The
New Republic" it was also given
greater impetus for action by a
resolution of a national SDS convention
calling for a major campus
disruption this spring. The
Columbia SDS chapter generously
offered its home campus as a site
for the disturbance.