He Threatened Me Here

"I will have your ass," were the words that made up one of the last complete sentences Leonard Lief said to me.

It was the spring of 1990 and then New York Governor Mario Cuomo was looking to up tuition to the City university of New York by $750 per semester and slash the budget by $12 million. It was a serious issue to poor students like myself. Without parents to support me or a bank account to withdraw funds from, low cost tuition meant the world to me. I was earning less than $8,000 a year working $6.00 an hour telemarketing jobs. I was in and out of housing court facing eviction for a $400 month studio in the Bronx. I often waited around after school events to gather leftover food to bring home... It was all too clear I needed the City University to get my poor ass out of poverty and I would do all that I could to protect the only college I could afford.

The year before similar tuition hikes and budget cuts were proposed and we protested successfully to stave those off but Cuomo was damaged politically during a presidential election year for it. In 1990 he wasn't going to stand by idlely. We knew if we protested the cops would be called in so we tried to come up with a plan that didn't call for the taking over of administrative buildings.

We were witness to a cop riot at John Jay College in Manhattan two nights before. Students were injured as cops attacked them. Students threw glass bottles back. The police union had photos of injured and bloodied cops from that riot they would use for future promotional materials calling for pay raises.

Faced with these realities we targeted the Lehman College Library. Our aim was to quietly take over the building and keep it open for 24 hours each day until the end of final exams. Once students were inside we would sit and have conversations with them and use the Library's phones to call state legislators, the media and so on.

Our attack worked. A small group of us showered, put on clean clothes and scheduled a meeting with President Leonard Lief. Lief and the time had already served 22 years as the school's first and only president. Old, stick'n of whisky or rye, mean and outwardly belligerent to students he agreed to meet with us. We put forward our demands to have complete access to the Library when the call came into his office during our meeting. "Hundreds of students have entered the Library with chains. They appear ready to take over the building." The building became ours for two weeks.




On the first evening of our occupation Lief came into the Library and asked to speak to students inside the Library. Uncharacteristically he spoke as if he wasn't too drunk and praised us for our behavior.

Then he asked to speak to me to the side of everyone else. He is a big man. Maybe six foot six with broad shoulders and mean looking face. Yes he was an old drunk, but that didn't mean he wasn't scary looking. He looked down at me with his toes touching mine, "If anything happens here I will have your ass." He then walked away.

My wife asked me, "Did you think they would name the Library after you?".

Well maybe if I win the lottery they will change their minds.