Judge Halts Controversial NYU Expansion Plan

"A state judge on Tuesday unexpectedly blocked about half of New York University’s large and hotly debated expansion plan to build four towers in the school’s leafy and largely low-scale Greenwich Village neighborhood," reports Charles V. Bagli. "The judge, Donna M. Mills, of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, ruled that the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had wrongfully agreed to turn over three public parks to the university to enable construction without first obtaining approval from the State Legislature."

Though a substantial portion of the plan has been halted, the university and project opponents disagree as to whether the judge's ruling, which "threw out five of the six claims made by opponents of the project," would allow the construction of a one-million-square-foot academic tower to proceed.