NYC Tip: Washington Square, Our Campus

Returning home for the summer usually involves sharing stories from college, and both casually and self-importantly reminding friends that “yeah, NYU doesn’t have a campus.” While those who go to real college get schwasted at frat houses, NYU undergrads become regulars at East Village bars, intern in Brooklyn, and in between, master the New York City subway system. Then, we subtly brag about it through Facebook updates. Fuck a campus, we go to school with Matilda.

But as I’ve learned in recent years, this fascination with an atypical college experience is anything but universal. Last semester, Dan wrote a poignant post that received over 40 comments from NYU students admitting to seriously considering transferring. It’s an unsurprising story: expectations of your “dream school” in the Village are difficult to meet when you’re on your own… in a school that loves the idea of being on your own.

“No matter what, no one is going to fulfill your dreams for you,” Dan wrote. “Not strangers, not friends, not boys, and certainly not New York University. Nope, you have to make your own uppers.”

I wish NYU would address this more effectively. No, no student has ever gained anything from a filling out a community survey, not even a free iPad. But NYU’s 2031 plans suggest that the NYU experience will become even more isolated — many more fish in a much bigger pond.

Though I personally support J-Sex’s leadership towards a global university, what will “being an NYU student” even mean in 2031? Yes, NYUAD, NYU Shanghai, and NYU Madrid are separate universes, but even in New York City alone, NYU students studying on Governors Island might have an entirely different sense of NYU the institution than students a few miles uptown.

This March, On-Campus writer Nick astutely explained what today’s sense of an NYU institution is: waiting in line at Faye’s, playing “Tisch kid or Stern kid?”, bitching about MAP courses. We all get it. We can be self-aware enough to know why Columbia students are entirely different beings even though they technically live in Manhattan, too.

And this is why I refuse to believe that NYU does not have a campus, although I tell my friends otherwise.

Yes, NYU has just begun an era of extreme expansion. And yes, we are surrounded by the biggest city in the country. But for now, any visitor who walks around the Washington Square area for even a minute knows immediately this is a campus — not only because those purple flags, but also because there are a shit ton of young people walking around WSP, and more importantly, none of them stop at the sight of a crazy midget man shouting at them to get to class in time.

I’m not saying that there is indeed an NYU community that we’re just not recognizing, but there is an NYU campus and — in its idiosyncrasies we often take for granted — a potential foundation for a sense of home.

Dan is right: at NYU, you make your own uppers. It sucks, but it isn’t entirely avoidable. There are classmates to meet, clubs to join, strangers in Bobst to vent to, and at least to an extent, a community of thousands of other NYU students also trying to make their own uppers. There is a sense of NYU-ness. But considering the administration’s future plans, this might not be true for much longer.

I have written lots of NYC Tips over the past two years. Some were servicey, some were ironic, and some actually helped you feel like a New Yorker. In my final tip, I say screw all of that. For once, feel less like a New Yorker and more like an NYU student, because saying so actually means something for now.

(Image by Dave Alvarez)

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