Fran Lebowitz shared her opinions on NYU, St. Vincent’s and Bloomberg at a recent appearance at SoHo bookstore McNally Jackson for the release of the book ’While We Were Sleeping: NYU and the Destruction of New York‘ which was written by a group of NYU faculty who are in opposition to the university’s president, John Sexton.
“I don’t love NYU. I didn’t hate it before. I just never thought about it. It’s not of interest to me. And it really should be stopped from being called NYU, because it really has nothing to do with New York. It is Suburban. To. The Core. Those buildings they built on the south side of Washington Square Park are giant pieces of suburban junk. They have no place in any city. Even cities we hate! Even Atlanta doesn’t deserve these! We have a mayor we don’t deserve, we have a city council we don’t deserve, and now we have a neighborhood we don’t deserve. NYU should move out of New York. A campus is out suburban entity. It has no place in the city, in any city. There’s no reason for them to be there. There is no reason for them to get bigger.
When St. Vincent’s Hospital closed, I said, “Where is that health conscious mayor? That mayor who doesn’t allow France to smoke a cigarette in restaurants. Where is that mayor? Not a sound out of that mayor when they closed the only hospital in the neighborhood. I said, “Wait and see who ends up with that property which is now way to valuable to use a hospital.” Billy Rudin is going to end up with that hospital and he did and he is one of the mayor’s best friends. How many hospitals did this mayor close? How many hospitals closed under this mayor?”
