Mamdani administration threatens 'legal action' if Columbia won't reopen campus to public

Cayla Bamberger, New York Daily News on Sep 30, 2026

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NEW YORK — The administration of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to take legal action if Columbia University declines to reopen a campus walkway to the general public, according to a new court filing this week.

The demand marked a major escalation since Mamdani first broke with former Mayor Adams in support of Morningside Heights residents, who sued last year to force Columbia to lift the restrictions started during student protests over the war in Gaza due to safety concerns.

The policy bars public access to College Walk, a section of W. 116th St. between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave. that runs through Columbia’s campus. Over the last few school years, the availability of that walkway has largely been limited to Columbia students, faculty, staff and authorized guests.

“If College Walk is not immediately opened to the public, the City intends to take prompt legal action to ensure that Columbia reopens the pedestrian walkway consistent with its past practices,” city Corporation Counsel Steven Banks and Toby Golick, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, wrote in court documents filed Tuesday in a Manhattan trial court.

As part of the filing, neighborhood residents agreed to drop their claims against the city. The filing was still pending as of Wednesday afternoon.

The ultimatum was first reported by the student newspaper Columbia Spectator.

In a statement, a Columbia spokesperson said while the university understands the importance of College Walk “as a connection between the University and its surrounding neighborhood,” the walkway has been Columbia’s property for decades since it was sold by the city.

“As the property owner, Columbia has the legal right and responsibility to manage access to College Walk, including taking appropriate measures to protect our community and the continuity of our academic operations,” said the spokesman, Adam Stephan.

The lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately return a request for comment. A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department declined to comment further than their statements in court documents.

A petition to reopen the campus had received more than 4,350 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon.

Columbia’s neighbors first brought the lawsuit in January 2025, arguing that a 1953 deal between the university and New York City, in which Columbia acquired the stretch of 116th St., included a pledge to maintain public access to the thoroughfare. Columbia disputes the argument, saying the walkway is now private property and the city’s easement is limited to municipal infrastructure.

The case faced multiple setbacks as the Adams administration declined to intervene. But after Mamdani — who grew up in Morningside Heights and is the son of a Columbia professor — took office, his administration signaled in court documents earlier this month that it would be taking a more forceful position. Mamdani was involved in political activism through the pro-Palestinian cause in college.

The closures have been a hassle for local residents, who frequently have to pass through campus in order to reach subways and mom-and-pop businesses on opposite sides of the gated-off lawns and school buildings.

The university has made minor tweaks to the policy over the years, most recently with the installation of the new Columbia president, Jennifer Mnookin. Mnookin announced at the start of the school year, and the beginning of her tenure, a task force to study reopening the gates, and a slight loosening of the rules, such as more same-day guest passes for students.

Those policy shifts did little to mollify local residents, who turned out in numbers on the first day of school this year to protest what they saw as both illegal and representative of their lack of a voice in decisions impacting their shared neighborhood.

“What happened to this university? We will not accept inaccessibility and the division that these closed gates represent,” Dan McSweeney, a program director of the Morningside Heights Community Coalition, said at the Sept. 8 rally.

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