In the 1970s, Cooper Union sold Green Camp to cover its financial deficits and maintain free education for its students. Green Camp had been a nature retreat for students to escape the East Village. They could come for a weekend: survey the land, play sports, swim, enjoy the open air.
In 2011, the Cooper community was told that the idea of implementing tuition—and effectively breaking a 150-year-old social mission—was not a new idea. Cooper had never been "sustainable". We'd been selling off property to keep the school afloat for years.
The sale of Green Camp was just that. Green Camp was erased from the institution, but it wasn't erased from the institutional memory.
Fighting for the school's social mission brought us together with alumni. "First Green Camp, now the whole school!" Hearing the alumni talk about this place filled our heads with dreams of a more prosperous Cooper Union: a time when students had time to go on weekend trips into the woods. If I were a student back then, I wouldn't be protesting against tuition. I wouldn't be campaigning for a complete restructuring of Cooper's administration. Green Camp sounded like a golden age, a fairy tale. I want to disappear into the woods.
"I'm sorry you'll never experience that place," they'd say.