Fwiw, a friend of mine recently returned to NYC after serving in Iraq in the Army, and started an initiative to get this engineering campus built in Willets Point, Queens:
His argument in a nutshell: why relegate NYC's tech hub to a single university on a cramped island, relatively inaccessible by subway (which Ramen-subsisting entrepreneurs will need), when you can situate it in the middle of 60+ acres, near the 7 Train, Mets/tennis sports center, and LaGuardia airport, with enough room for several universities plus office space and restaurants and other amenities.
He thinks NYC's attempt at recreating SV will be DOA if it tries to build 'Silicon Island'. Imagine instead having a 60 acre campus with say, Stanford, Cornell, and the Technion, alongside incubators and other entrepreneurial support infrastructure, in the middle of a hungry immigrant community. That's a better recipe for success.
I hope NYU-Poly wins the bid but the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship is not quite there yet like it is in places like Stanford. (even though that's in the school's marketing efforts)
They already have their engineering schools in much better Manhattan locations, so I doubt they will be willing to invest hundreds of millions (or perhaps billions) to build a new campus on Roosevelt island.
Hmm, this submission and some other comments around the web call the article "Stanford & Cornell Fight to Win Bid for Engineering Campus in Manhattan", but it's now been changed to not mention Manhattan. From what I can tell, none of the proposed sites are in Manhattan.
I lived on Roosevelt Island for a year. It may not be geographically Manhattan but I it (and other East River islands) is in the jurisdiction of that borough.
Roosevelt island is in the borough of Manhattan and counted as Manhattan in the census. It's sort of independent but definitely associated with Manhattan proper.
http://www.coalitionforqueens.org/
His argument in a nutshell: why relegate NYC's tech hub to a single university on a cramped island, relatively inaccessible by subway (which Ramen-subsisting entrepreneurs will need), when you can situate it in the middle of 60+ acres, near the 7 Train, Mets/tennis sports center, and LaGuardia airport, with enough room for several universities plus office space and restaurants and other amenities.
He thinks NYC's attempt at recreating SV will be DOA if it tries to build 'Silicon Island'. Imagine instead having a 60 acre campus with say, Stanford, Cornell, and the Technion, alongside incubators and other entrepreneurial support infrastructure, in the middle of a hungry immigrant community. That's a better recipe for success.