I was also hoping for Stanford. This is not meant to disrespect Cornell - I just question how additive it will be. Cornell has long produced great Engineers, but many wind up in NYC anyway. Will cutting the prop plane to Ithica really be a game changer? The most interesting part is the Technion angle.

With Stanford, you could accomplish two things. First of all, you add incremental Engineering talent. Second, uoubopen a new network and way of thinking. It really could have been a game changer.

My question for Hizzoner Da Mayor... Why not both?

Stanford pulled out last week:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-16/stanford-pulls-o...

Cornell is also planning to build 2,000,000 sf. That's more than 2x as much as the next closest (Columbia) which, in turn, is far more than any other proposal.

Cornell's proposal was just very big and ambitious.

Interesting. In Columbia's case I would ask, "you are already there, what are you waiting for? Free land?"

Basically, yes.

I have nothing against Cornell, it's a great school, but I'm not sure where this logic that the city needs a tech school comes from? There are a number of top notch universities in the NYC area. The city alone is home to NYU and Columbia - isn't it easier to just beef up the their programs by redistributing space and using the money to attract faculty members? Has Carnegie Mellon resulted in a tech startup ecosystem in the city of Pittsburgh?

Seems more like a political play on the part of Bloomberg. If you want to build your company into a Apple, Intel, Google, etc. in NYC - good luck finding the space to do it. What you will more likely see in the city are smaller sized startups that will find success in working alongside with the many other industries that exist in the city, such as finance, media and fashion. And that's not a bad thing.

Cornell alread has its medical school (Weill Cornell) in NYC. This may allow for more interdepartmental medically oriented research - I know for a fact the lack of general science teaching available to students at Weill Cornell (which does research degrees as a well as medical degrees) means they have to send students to NYU/Columbia, which can cost over $10000 per student per year.

Google just bought a 3,000,000 square foot building on 8th avenue.

Seems like they were able to find space.

I really hope that this becomes a trend and other cities follow suit.

It's really unfortunate that many US cities have focused on having world class Business Schools or Law Schools rather than Engineering schools.

Makes sense. Cornell is already New York's land-grant college, and has affiliations with the State University of New York and state government. They probably have an edge in getting government funds, and the relationships with the state legislature to make it happen.

The comments here seem to undercut Cornell's technical pedigree and completely discount the fact that this is a joint proposal with the Technion - The Israeli Institute of Technology. Today's press conference, which I watched in its entirety, specifically highlighted the entrepreneurial culture and mindset (in addition to world class science) that the Technion will bring to the table above and beyond the traditional graduate level sciences provided by Cornell.

I shouldn't really have to list the accomplishments of the Technion in this forum. Its faculty and alumni have had a hand in thousands of patents, hundreds of companies listed on American stock exchanges (not to mention Israeli or European) an outsized influence on virtually every technology we use today, have attracted R&D centers for many global technology leaders and, oh ya, a number of Nobel prizes.

This is actually a Very Big Deal (TM) for New York City, Cornell, The Technion and Israel.

This is so depressing -- what NYC really needs is Stanford or MIT. Cornell is a wonderful school, but there is nothing to indicate that they know anything about tech...

If you're asserting that Cornell has a poor engineering program, I think you need to do a little more research

"Among graduate engineering programs, Cornell was ranked 9th in the United States by U.S. News in 2008" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University

I don't think NYC needs a Stanford or MIT, they need someone who will treat the NYC campus as a primary focus. For that reason Columbia and Cornell should come first. You might argue that Columbia already has a presence but that doesn't mean they're NOT hurting for space. Furthermore, Cornell already has a NYC presence as well.

how many CEOs or CTOs of silicon valley success stories are cornell grads? how many many startups that get funding are headed by grads from cornell? and since when does US News and World Report know anything about technology? i've been paying my dues in silicon alley since the late 80s and this isn't what i've been waiting for my entire life...

Yeah, for anyone who wasn't know (I only found out recently), Cornell's medical school is in NYC.

You are terribly misinformed. Cornell has a fantastic CS program and in general a very strong engineering school.

#5 in CS: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu... #9 in Engineering: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/...

From Wikipedia:

A number of Cornellians have been prominent innovators, starting with Thomas Midgley, Jr. ('11),[287] the inventor of Freon. Jeff Hawkins ('79)[288] invented the Palm Pilot and subsequently founded Palm, Inc. Graduate Jon Rubinstein ('78)[289] is credited with the development of the iPod. William Higinbotham developed Tennis for Two in 1958, one of the earliest computer games and the predecessor to Pong, and Robert Tappan Morris developed the first computer worm on the Internet. The most direct evidence of dark matter was provided by Vera Rubin ('51).[290] Jill Tarter ('66)[291] is the current director of the SETI Institute and Steve Squyres ('81)[292] is the principal investigator on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. Eight Cornellians have served as NASA astronauts. Bill Nye ('77) is best known as "The Science Guy".[293]

Really, you should know the Robert Morris one off the top of your head at the very least.

Also, Cornell is named after a guy who made his money in the communication technologies business. Unlike Yale, Stanford, Duke, and most of the other elite schools in the U.S., which are named after drug dealers.

Drug dealers!? Please elaborate.

Elihu Yale was a Governor of the British East India Company, which made the King rich by peddling drugs to the Chinese, among other thing.

Don't know about the rest.

I thought the preferred pejorative for Leland Stanford was "robber baron".

Or "Captain of Industry" in friendlier contexts.

Duke's name comes from a tobacco businessman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan_Duke

The CTO of RightScale, Thorsten Von Eicken, taught the undergrad computer architecture course (CS 314) for a couple of semesters.

Cornell has an excellent engineering school (much better than Columbia or NYU). Not quite as good as Stanford or MIT, but a much stronger ties to NYC.