Pratt: Not In Our Front Yard
Yesterday, the Local blog broke the sad news that as of next month Pratt will begin enforcing its longstanding-but-long-ignored rule against loitering by non-school-related people. (Like one of the Brownstoner progeny above shown in happier times on a campus-trashing wilding spree.) Community members will still be able to cut through the campus on foot but…
Yesterday, the Local blog broke the sad news that as of next month Pratt will begin enforcing its longstanding-but-long-ignored rule against loitering by non-school-related people. (Like one of the Brownstoner progeny above shown in happier times on a campus-trashing wilding spree.) Community members will still be able to cut through the campus on foot but they won’t be able to sit and admire the sculpture. A spokeswoman for the school said the policy does not allow the use of the campus grounds as a public park or playground. Most of the commenters on the Local aren’t happy about this and we heard from one community resident that a group called the Clinton Hill Action Committee is forming to try to get Pratt to reconsider its decision; if you are interested you can contact the organizers at clintonhillac@gmail.com.
Pratt Rolls Up the Welcome Mat [NYT/Local]
I’m not sure if it has changed with this new policy but prior to this you could get access to the Pratt library as a non-student for a membership fee. There was one price to use the library and a another higher price to borrow from it.
“there are those who would call the students over-privileged and over entitled elitist hipsters.”
Hasn’t that always been the case? Certainly was when we were there…and I worked my way through Pratt: for the school, bar tending, at The Gap (yech!), etc… What a privilege!
B.S. argument, bxgrl, sorry.
My Brooklyn kid is a student in Boston. She cheerfully takes the subway (I guess it’s the T in Boston) anywhere. Other kids in her dorm – actually MOST of the kids in her dorm are terrified of the subway. By and large these are suburban students. The Californians seem to be the most terrified.
Suburban parents are afraid of this environment and Pratt’s blocking the campus is probably a step meant solely to assuage worries of the parents. The 80’s murder on Hall St. (which partly inspired “Art School Confidential” ) had an effect on enrollment, and I imagine the school is hoping to bypass the same effect. It’s worse really, because in the 80’s old news was just old news, not something to be blogged and commented about endlessly.
Hope it all works out for all of us.
well-said? It was a rant that started with insults and went downhill from there.
the tax issue is important. Schools and churches are given special privileges in our society and in return they are supposed to give something back. Some of them give back too much of the wrong thing. But how this closure impacts crime or makes students “safer” is anyone’s guess. Unless those security guards are going to be walking students back home to their far flung apartments.
“They don’t owe you overprivileged, over-entitled SOBs anything. “- Funny- there are those who would call the students over-privileged and over entitled elitist hipsters.
It’s also interesting to think that after managing to maintain a successful school and student population over some of the worst decades this city has gone through, that now, with Clinton Hill and fort Greene much safer and more upscale than they ever used to be, now Pratt is so worried over safety they are shutting out the community? Isn’t that a little late? And been proven unnecessary? The mugging- as awful as it was, happened way off campus. There is no evidence the student was stalked. And no evidence a student was targeted, as opposed to anyone else who happened to be in he wrong place at th wrong time.
I wonder whether we’ll be able to go to Pratt for the New Year’s whistles in 2010? I hope so : /
orestes – well said.
The I “I pay taxes…” argument is ridiculous. Churches dont pay taxes – are they (or their grounds) open to the public?? What about Military Bases? – its Private Property regardless of how much taxes you pay.
And frankly given the litigation exposure it is amazing they even let people walk-through the campus. I have to believe that a fair number of people who are so “outraged” would be the 1st to sue if they were the victim of a crime on Pratt’s campus, and certainly would call every media outlet to complain about the lax security….(thereby hurting Pratt’s reputation)
In the end – Pratt as an institution has done more for Brooklyn then anyone of your petty tax dollars or even your community activities.
OK, wasder, you’re not stupid, I may have been unclear. Just the point I was making is that the closing of American campuses have been going on for a LONG time now, most notably starting with the libraries. In college towns there are TONS of amateur scholars who want access to university press titles and whatnot.
Closing the grounds is to me just the next step, regrettable surely though.
Compare this to Columbia, which also has only a few points of access, but lets the public wander/loiter year round. There’s a lot of crime around that campus (which the university does its best to down play), too.
I think urban campuses should be as open as possible (see Penn, for instance),as it fosters trust between the campus and the neighbors. Pratt, as a pillar of the Brooklyn community, should know this. An “us vs. them” attitude is only going to create antagonism that could spill over into criminal acts.
Taxes aside…”Also, streets were demapped, I believe, handing over public thoroughfares to private control.”
BG, Blame the Pratt family empire who used to own most of Clinton Hill back in the day. Demapping of streets, destruction of hundreds of brownstones to create the Willouby Walk coops and Pratt dorms…loss of the shoe factory on Layfayette to private condos in the 80’s…etc.
But also remember the Pratt family had a contingency if the school did not work out (as every student knows by the oddness of some of the older buildings), convert the campus into a factory.
I’m not defending the closure of the campus, just realizing there may be a need to refocus when their are concerns about security.
While it may seem silly, perhaps the immediate community could have “Pratt community” IDs, much like alumni do (I don’t alas, but that’s another story).
And I agree with MM “It would be disastrous on many levels for them to retreat behind gated walls” stepping the neighborhood vibe back to the 80’s, in my POV.