Columbia Stabbings Revive Morningside Park Safety Concerns

HARLEM, NY — For the second time in two years, the deadly stabbing of a Columbia University student has sent shockwaves of grief through the neighborhood — and revived safety concerns about Morningside Park, its backyard green space.

Davide Giri, a 30-year-old graduate student, died Thursday after being attacked by a man who police later identified as Vincent Pinkney, a 25-year-old Harlem resident. Though authorities initially said the stabbing happened outside the park, a newly released criminal complaint suggests that Giri was attacked around 11 p.m. on the park's northern edge at 123rd Street, between Amsterdam and Morningside avenues.

Minutes later, another man was stabbed across from the southern end of the park, near 110th Street and Morningside Drive. That victim, later identified as 27-year-old Roberto Malaspina, had just arrived at Columbia as a visiting scholar from Italy, and was hospitalized in stable condition with multiple stab wounds to the torso.

The attacks triggered inevitable comparisons to the killing of Tessa Majors, an 18-year-old Barnard College student who was fatally stabbed during an attempted robbery in Morningside Park almost exactly two years ago.

In the wake of Giri's death, the NYPD has announced plans to increase its presence in the park after 7 p.m., and Columbia's own public safety force has also added patrols along Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue and the perimeter of Morningside Park.

Both echo similar steps taken after Majors's killing. Taken as a whole, they are only the latest chapter in the fraught history of Morningside Park, which has long held symbolic importance not only as a treasured green space, but as a dividing line between the privileged enclaves of Columbia and Harlem: a lower-income, predominantly Black area.

For years, the hilly, 30-acre park had a reputation for nighttime danger, and Columbia leaders admonished students to avoid it altogether. Recent restorations, plummeting crime rates and programming like a weekend farmer's market had helped alter that image — until Majors's death "shattered that sense of safety," as the New York Times reported.

"We were strong, we were together"

Following Majors's killing, some residents feared the tragedy would inflame racial tensions — all three of the assailants were Black boys from Harlem— and feared that it would lead to over-policing. Indeed, some measures taken by police did prompt a backlash, like the gas-powered NYPD floodlights that illuminated the park at night for weeks after the murder.

It wasn't immediately clear how the latest measures would go over in the neighborhood or on campus, but Brad Taylor, president of Friends of Morningside Park, said that he and other park leaders welcomed the increased patrols.

"Of course, that needs to be permanent," he told Patch on Monday.

Compounding the latest tragedy is the ironic fact that neighborhood leaders had expressed optimism about safety improvements at the park in recent months.

Majors's 2019 death had been preceded by a rise in robberies, with 24 reports of serious crimes reported at Morningside in 2019, according to NYPD statistics. By contrast, the park had just seven in 2020 and three this year, until last week.

Meanwhile, a $200,000 purchase of four security cameras was included in the latest City Council budget, passed in June — a victory for neighborhood leaders who had long requested the cameras. But Taylor told Patch on Monday that the cameras have yet to materialize, and that scheduled walk-throughs with the city to set the process in motion have been postponed repeatedly.

Now, neighbors are looking ahead to a happier occasion: Morningside Park's annual holiday tree lighting. Initially set for last Saturday, the lighting had to be postponed when authorities temporarily closed the park, and has now been rescheduled for this coming Saturday, Dec. 11, at 5 p.m.

Though the festive event might sound out-of-step with the somber moment, Taylor said it has been an effective balm in years past.

"About two weeks after Tessa Majors's murder, we gathered to light the tree and people really appreciated that," he said. "We were strong, we were together."

Related coverage:

• Cameras Coming To Morningside Park, Over A Year After Murder
• Teenager Gets 9 Years To Life For Murder Of Barnard Student

Have a Harlem news tip? Contact reporter Nick Garber at nick.garber@patch.com.