Cooper Union's Chrysler Building Ground Lease Is Now a Scholarship Fund

The most famous spire in Manhattan has a new job: paying for engineering, architecture and art students to attend school on the house. Cooper Union has signed a fresh ground lease on the Chrysler Building, the East 42nd Street landmark on land the college owns, and the school says the proceeds are meant to bring back scholarships that cover the whole of tuition. At present every student has half of the bill covered. The college's stated aim is to close that remaining half, with 2028 as the year it hopes to get there. For a city that measures its institutions by what they give away as much as by what they hold, it is a satisfying arrangement: one of the great skyline pieces working, quietly, for a classroom downtown. The terms of the new lease have not been made public, and we will not guess at them.

With reporting from ARTnews.