Columbia Helps Law Prof Buy $2.6M New York Townhouse

New York University received publicity earlier this year with news that it helped finance the purchase of a multimillion-dollar condo for a law professor snagged last June from Columbia University.

It turns out that Columbia is also in the mortgage financing game for its professors. The school financed a second mortgage of $1,039,000 for a restored Harlem townhouse purchased by law professor and economist Edward Morrison, the New York Times reports.

Morrison and his wife, Anne, paid $2.575 million for the property, a record for a townhouse in the neighborhood located near the Columbia campus in Morningside Heights, the story says. Countrywide Bank, now a subsidiary of Bank of America, financed a $1 million first mortgage through a university program that provides mortgages at favorable rates to some professors, spokeswoman Elizabeth Schmalz told the newspaper.

The program also provides a $40,000 one-time payment and an extra $40,000 a year in housing assistance.

Schmalz said the greatest challenge to recruiting and retaining faculty in New York is housing. New York University cited the same problem when it revealed how it helped Catherine Sharkey, who was lured from Columbia, with her purchase of a $4.2 million condo in a complex overlooking Central Park.

An NYU foundation purchased an 80 percent interest in the condo and financed the other 20 percent.

Both Sharkey and Morrison have expertise in empirical legal studies.