Norman Siegel: "We Have Just Begun to Fight!"

A multitude of events were running simultaneously on 116th St. between B'Way and Riverside Drive this afternoon (Wednesday, April 20). A large grandstand has been set up at the RSD end for a 4-6 pm union rally (Unite/HERE; UAW; AFL-CIO) expecting hundreds of union members arriving to support the graduate student strikes simultaneously in process at Yale as well as Columbia.

The striking students are now into day three of their marching and chanting at the 116th St. gate.

And at 2 p.m. opponents of the Columbia expansion into Manhattanville, including Norman Siegel representing businesses in the area, Jordi Reyes/Montblanc (Chair of CB#9) Maritta Dunn and other board members, tenants, business owners threatened by the sly Columbia move behind the scenes to achieve condemnation/eminent domain there, student supporters such as Nel Gerster of the Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification, Tom Kappner of CPC, and many others spoke out along the lines of Norman Siegel's concluding comment: "We have just begun to fight!"

I have my monster teaching day at Brooklyn College tomorrow and so will delay until later a fuller account of things. But in this lovely day it was good to see an assembly of people who actually give a damn in these Enroned times of deceit and exploitation.