Some students, residents worry, will crave a rowdier college experience. Lisa Trader, 36, said she relished that her children, ages 8 and 6, could “just run” freely when they got off the tram. If the neighborhood dynamics changed, she said, perhaps the island’s more idyllic charms would disappear. “I don’t need to go back to college,” she said. “It would be a shame for it to turn into a party island.”

Ms. Torres said Roosevelt Island families need not worry. “This is Cornell,” she said. “One would assume they’ll be working.”

In what I can only describe as completely creepy, Ezra had nine kids [1]. Sadly, one of them, Charles Carroll Cornell, died at the age of 4 in 1837. So Two years later, his wife had another son. They named him Charles Carroll Cornell. This child died at two years of age, so at least he never had to realize the utter sketchiness associated with naming a child after one of your other dead children.