The Thin End of the Wedge: Faculty House, Columbia University, and the Future of Higher Education in America

While news of the ongoing labor dispute at Columbia University’s Faculty House has gotten out—you can read about it in The Nation—its full implications remain obscure.  On its surface the fight appears straightforward: Faculty House is a branch of Columbia University’s Dining Services and located on its East Campus. An event space and upscale restaurant ostensibly for Columbia faculty and their guests, it employs 34 workers. On March 31, 2013, their contract expires. It has been an awful contract, exploitative, and of questionable legality. It is a contract which the workers want to change. The story of this dispute is about stolen tips; it is about “part-time” workers pulling …

Nothing Is Impossible, Except for Dinosaurs (and Smart Television)

30 Rock is kind of like a microbrew. Ten or fifteen years ago, most Americans didn’t know there was an option beyond Budweiser or, if you were feeling really adventurous, Heineken.  Due to restrictive local regulations and the apathy of the American beer industry, we didn’t know that you could pack a lot more flavor (and alcohol) into a 12 oz bottle. But once you had a Ranger IPA or a Bell’s Two Hearted, why would you want to go back to Yuengling? The same goes for TV. The sitcom has rarely been celebrated as an artistic medium, with the exception of the occasional M*A*S*H* or Seinfeld, but a number of new, smarter shows hit the airwaves in the last decade. Series like Community …

Debunking the Mythical Discourse Surrounding Public Housing: Part IV of the UHA 2012

In ToM's final installment of its 2012 UHA coverage, our correspondents present a detailed report regarding one of the conference's perpetually most popular subjects: public housing. With a packed house in attendance, the UHA’s six roundtable presenters provided a coherent and compelling argument against prevailing myths regarding public housing.  Considering the success of documentaries like The Pruitt Igoe myth in recent years, new interpretations of public housing’s legacy have come to the fore. Leading figures in urban housing including Kenneth Jackson and Alexander Von Hoffman among others attended, making for a lively post presentation discussion.   From Le Corbusier influenced …

Crime in the City and the Curious Case of Philadelphia: Part II of the 2012 UHA

"Is their such a thing as Philadelphia exceptionalism?" asked one observer at this year's UHA.  Undoubtedly, over the past two UHA's (2010, 2012), Philadelphia has enjoyed the attentions of more than a few historians. With this in mind, ToM correspondents provide a glimpse at some of the work being done on the City of Brotherly Love.  Crime and policing emerged as another area of increased interest at this year's conference.  San Francisco's Chinatown, New York's Washington Heights, and yes, West Philadelphia provide case studies focusing on crime's influence on political mobilization, urban renewal, race relations and community activism. For part I of ToM's 2012 UHA coverage click …

The Specter of Revolution in “The Dark Knight Rises”

The twenty-first century has not given humanity a lot to smile about between 9/11 and Iraq, Katrina and Snooki.  One of its more unexpected joys, though, has been the brutally dark Batman trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan.  Where to begin?  That the films redeemed the Dark Knight after the cinematic abortions of the 1990s, which plugged big name actors like Tommy Lee Jones and Arnold Schwarzenegger into comic book roles in a depressing, madlib fashion?  That a talented indie filmmaker did not just put an eccentric gloss on a major studio franchise, but actually took the opportunity to address the urgent issues of the day on an epic scale?  That summer blockbusters could embrace a …

Nueva York: Politics, Art, and the Transnational Big Apple

In Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, disaffected American star Bill Murray sleepwalks through his stay in Tokyo.  Not speaking a lick of Japanese and cynically overwhelmed by the massive high rises and technology of modern day Tokyo, Murray’s character embarks on a series of small journeys punctuated by his inability to fully grasp events as they unfold before him.  Instead, through Murray’s eyes, one experiences the city as brightly lit, whiskey induced, metropolis full of quirky Japanese and self absorbed Americans. While many critics applauded Coppola’s efforts, others saw the movie as simply another well intentioned but nonetheless painful exercise in Western …

Did the Broken Windows Theory Work?

Political scientist James Q. Wilson died last week at the age of 80.  The Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, Wilson was friend to politicians like Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) and a contributor to journals such as Public Interest, which promoted the notion that well-intentioned policies often have “unintended consequences.”  This idea was popular among conservatives and ex-liberals, who had grown skeptical when the once dominant philosophy of liberalism floundered in the face of inflation, crime and joblessness in the 1970s and 1980s. The idea for which Wilson is most famous, of course, is the “broken windows theory.”  It proposes that …

Joy and Pain: What Jeremy Lin Tells Us about 21st Century American Race Relations

Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he's Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don't get the same praise. -- Floyd Mayweather, Jr. It is precisely the unfixed liminality of the Asian immigrant – geographically, linguistically, and racially at odds with the context of the “national” – that has given rise to the necessity of endlessly fixing and repeating such stereotypes. -- Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts, 19 Floyd Mayweather is not a brain surgeon. The man punches for a living and he punches very well. However, all that head trauma must have knocked more than few synapses loose, why would Mayweather begrudge the new Asian American …

Shouting in Silence: 9/11 and the Importance of Not Saying Anything

As August comes to a close, the dog days of summer end, leaving before everyone the distance of Fall. For some like myself, Fall remains the premier season of the year. The air cools, football, England’s Premier League (EPL), and basketball (well, maybe not this Fall) commence and the business of work begins. In its own way, Autumn initiates a sort of professional renewal. For New Yorkers though, Labor Day marks the uncomfortable memory of an impending milestone many would rather forget, 9/11. Unfortunately as the tenth anniversary of this national tragedy approaches, a cacophony of rhetoric seems to be greeting it.I lived in New York for nearly a decade working as a public educator in the …

Dog Days Classics: Robert Caro’s Controversial Portrait of Robert Moses and New York

“Surely the greatest book ever written about a city.” - David Halberstam Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, 1974 Since its initial 1974 publication, rarely has book dominated a subject the way Robert Caro’s The Power Broker has. Caro defined Moses as an overbearing, racist, once idealistic public servant who became an obsessed power mongering city planner single handedly undermining New York’s neighborhoods and communities through massive highway and public works projects. Under Caro’s watchful eye, Moses crafted cities much as Le Corbusier might have decades earlier, all flow and no people. Minority and low income communities found …