<p>I lived in a TERRIBLE part of NYC, myself. It was the late '70s. First, a garbage strike, for weeks, with a perpetual stench you would not believe. Then, a serial killer who shoved folks at my subway stop onto the tracks. Then, a neighborhood crime rate that far exceeds anything in the US today. Then, a subway strike that drove the neighborhood to its knees. Which neighborhood? Greenwich Village.</p>
<p>I invite anyone who views Morningside Heights as sketchy based on the “old days” to spend a few days there now, as I have as a new Columbia parent. The stereotype I heard when I lived in NYC, that one does not go to the Columbia neighborhood after dark, although perhaps once true, is now totally obsolete. Morningside Heights now feels like a college town (which, by the way, it is).</p>