Polytechnic University OKs Merger With NYU

Apparently not satisfied with just gobbling up Lower Manhattan, NYU has set its sights on expanding to Brooklyn. Yesterday, according to the Daily Eagle, the Board of Trustees of downtown Brooklyn's Polytechnic University voted overwhelmingly to approve a merger with NYU.

The Department of Education and New York State Board of Regents still need to sign off on the deal to make it official, but NYU's trustees have already voted in favor of the merger and it seems unlikely that any impediment to its completion will arise. Talk of the merger first surfaced three years ago, but faculty concerns and, more recently, suspicions of conflict of interest between members of the universities' two boards postponed the arrangement. Those obstacles appear to have since been surmounted to the satisfaction of all the parties involved.

On the surface, the merger would seem to benefit both schools, even though NYU is roughly 10 times larger than Polytechnic. Polytechnic will now have access to the vast wealth of resources and facilities held by NYU, while NYU will get to add an engineering school to their academic portfolio.

What's Going On

Here are some of the stories The Optimist has been reading today:

A.O. Scott has a fine appraisal today of former Boerum Hill resident Heath Ledger's short, but admirable career.

The Brownstoner blog, which was highlighted in the Times' initial story about Ledger's death for coverage of the time the actor spent living in Brooklyn, has an article about Councilman David Yassky's proposed bill that would require gas companies to gradually blend biodiesel fuel into the heating oil they provide.

"Much of Downtown Brooklyn Is Going Out of Business". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle's headline tells the whole disheartening story.

The Brooklyn Paper has a striking sneak peek image of artist Olafur Eliasson's "New York City Waterfalls", "which will send water cascading from under the Brooklyn Bridge and from three free-standing scaffolds in New York Harbor".

And finally, Time Out New York's poll this week asks its readers what they think about the Pacific Standard bar in Boerum Hill's "frequent drinker program" that rewards hardcore barflies with prizes for being, uh, hardcore barflies. Since the URL listed in the magazine doesn't take to the right poll, here are the verbatim answers proposed by TONY to the question of whether the promotion is genius or "what".

a) No! It's rewarding people for alcohol abuse - this is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
b) Hells yeah! It's no worse than credit cards offering points for high-interest borrowing.
c) It's okay as long as the bar offers free car service.
d) I'm too drunk to care.

The Optimist hopes you didn't automatically leap (or stumble) at option "d".