Why NYU? Rio Tang

I, a lonely marble eagle, perched upon the almighty Washington Square Park Arch, am sad. What cruel torture it is for me to witness waves of new students flock into NYU, my wings tauntingly spread open, but fixed in place!

I remember watching the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory burn down in my youth. The fire left my stone-cold heart indifferent (I was after all, but marble). However, NYU and NYC united to fight, eventually enacting the Sullivan-Hoey Fire Prevention Law. Even today, at my frail centenarian age, the city does not rest. Ruth Segel’s annual art movement “Chalk” sees hundreds of students and NYC inhabitants remember the tragedy. NYC’s social activism has influenced that of NYU, much like how NYU’s Stonewall march influenced NYC half a decade later. Curse those people who uttered with complete snobbery, the blasphemous phrase “NYU has no campus”! They could not be farther from the truth. The enduring symbiotic relationship between the city and the university only proves that NYU is, in fact, a campus on steroids.

Just last year, when the Michael Rectenwald debacle was the talk of the town, the NYU local was filled with opinion articles uniting for the protection of basic mutual respect. NYU embodies the NYC spirit,...