On the one hand, they invest $7 billion to transform 5 or 6 blocks of Harlem into something "which Columbia officials said would eventually include many of the university’s science and research laboratories." The result will no doubt be a towering mass of predictable bullshit-generic-foggy- glasschitecture, and will thus fit right in west Harlem. (Idiots: People, particularly young people, like living in buildings that used to have industrial students.)On the other hand, Columbia has its very own Depression-era cyclotron (AKA "The Atom Smasher") in their basement, and they're tossing it out with yesterday's cafeteria food:
At Columbia, money was a main issue. Officials said the cheapest alternative was to junk the atom smasher and recycle its metals. (The machine is no longer radioactive.) That might cost $90,000.
Dismantling the machine and putting it into storage until a home could be found for its permanent display might cost twice as much. Readying it for public viewing would cost still more.
Here you have one of the few wonderfully oversized machines that could stand as a symbol of achievements in a way that normal people ("donors" they're called) could recognize. And they junk it.
