Eddie Borrero, who runs the Riverside Beer & Soda Distributors on 12th Avenue, grew up in the nearby Manhattanville projects.

He remembers tough times in the 1970s and 1980s but says the neighborhood has improved greatly in recent years. He welcomes the clean-up that the university's expansion will bring but fears high rents and the possibility he will be forced to leave because of eminent domain action. His business has already moved out from the Upper East Side when rents rose too high.

Borrero is against the university's plan and reckons Columbia is out to expand its own pockets. A big business like Columbia, he says, will always win out over a small business like his own, which employs just three people. Forcing businesses to sell up, he says, is not the American way.