When Cornell and Technion won the big city-sponsored competition for a major new science campus in New York City recently, that didn't mean other competing programs lost out. After all, there's a surprising amount of fallow real estate that the city owns, and where science innovation is concerned, the more the better in the 5 boroughs. Cornell will develop a campus on Roosevelt Island, but New York University's proposal to expand its Polytechnic Campus in Brooklyn is also taking off.
[The defunct Metropolitan Transit Authority building at 370 Jay St. in Brooklyn would become a new NYU-sponsored graduate science center; currently the only part of the building that is operational is the subway station beneath it. Image courtesy of NYU via The Real Deal]
The new science center, called the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), will be a collaborative effort between NYU, CUNY, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Toronto, the University of Warwick, Indian University of Technology in Bombay, IBM and Cisco Systems. NYU already has its Polytechnic Institute in a building less than a block from the 459,000sf MTA building it wants to purchase. Brooklynites have been keen to see the mostly abandoned 1950 behemoth repurposed and brought into step with the new Downtown Brooklyn for quite a while, and with the City and NYU's consortium partners supporting its bid and helping to make up the $25M or so it needs, the new science center is looking very much like it may really materialize.
Boosters of the CUSP project are not shy in forecasting what the applied science institute could mean to Brooklyn as an emergent center for technology and new science businesses:
- In a new brochure boosting the project, NYU quotes Dr. Anthony Townsend, research director at the Institute for the Future, who said, “Every city is becoming a laboratory for new urban technologies. Brooklyn is arguably the best civic laboratory in the world.”
- “It would make Brooklyn the urban center of the universe,” said Paul Horn, NYU’s senior vice provost for research. “There’s nothing anywhere near it on this scale.”
Brooklyn has already mapped out this section of its Downtown as a technology hub, with NYU's Polytechnic Institute and the multi-tenant Metrotech Center as its current anchors. In anticipation of opening CUSP in the renovated 370 Jay St. facility by 2017, NYU has already leased 60,000sf of space in Metrotech Center to begin attracting students and hiring new faculty, much as Cornell has already leased space in Manhattan for its new science center while construction goes on at the Roosevelt Island site.
[In an otherwise unremarkable mid-century building, the subway signage at 370 Jay St. is completely unique in New York and mildly famous. Photo courtesy of Mid-Century Mundane]
Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. currently holds several product showcase events in Manhattan, including twice-annually on the Rockefeller University campus. With life sciences researchers from Rockefeller Medical, Weill Cornell Medical, New York Presbyterian, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering (all in the immediate neighborhood) actively invited to attend, this is an excellent opportunity for scientists and laboratory equipment suppliers to network and discuss their research needs and solutions. The 2012 show dates for Rockefeller, as well as our other NYC events are:
- 4/26/2012 -- Rockefeller University campus
- 10/15/2012 -- Columbia University Medical Center campus
- 10/16/2012 -- Mt. Sinai School of Medicine campus
- 10/17/2012 -- Rockefeller University campus
For information on exhibiting, click the button below; to see our complete 2012 show schedule, click here.
