N.Y.U."s Expansion - NYTimes.com Re "N.Y.U."s Plan for Expansion Draws Anger in Community" (news article, March 10): During New York's antebellum expansion, architects of SoHo's iconic cast-iron structures looked downward to satisfy their tenants" storage requirements. Immense basement vaults, lighted by telltale glass-peppered sidewalks, allowed merchants to double their stock without building upward. Today, my alma mater, New York University, finds itself with a similar thirst for expansion. N.Y.U., rather than force-feed its unimaginative expansion plan to our country's most insubordinate neighborhood, Greenwich Village, should take a cue from its cast-iron neighbors to the south. Underground classrooms, research facilities and skylighted common areas have proved wildly successful at N.Y.U."s recently renovated Tisch Hall and coupled with tasteful, low-rise structures would be a natural fit for the plots situated at the margins of the university's superblocks. By opting for this sort of urbane underground expansion, N.Y.U. could craft a solution equal parts Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs - a fitting compromise given the Village's history.