City College of New York - Microcosm Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 110 text:

 III CKK S President...........................Waldcmar KaempITert 97 Kirs I Vice-President...................Henry Neumann ‘00 Second Vice-President...................Klias Lieberman 03 Third N ice-President...............Morton Gottschall '13 Secretary...........................Donald A. Roberts 19 Treasurer...............................Arthur Dickson 09 Historian...........................P. Max Apfelbaum ‘23 Associate Historian.............Charles K. Angrisl 2.’», 3IK I-IKK Dikkctoks: Charles P. Fagnani 73, Lewis S. Run hard 77, Joseph L. Buttenweiser '83, Samuel Schulman 83, Stephen P. Duggan '90, George II. Taylor '92. W alter Timnie 93, Clarence G. Galston 93, Robert F. Wagner '98, James A. Foley 01. To Skkvk Through 1938: Harold Nathan 83, Jerome lex- ander 96, George W. Whiteside 99, Nathaniel Fleischer 08, Morton Gottschall 13, Milton K. Schaltman 17, Arthur M. Moritz '19, Leo Klauher '23, Herman I.. Weisman 24, Pineus Sober 26, rthur G. Ro-enhlulh ’27, Mortimer Karp| 30. To Skkvk Through 1939: S. Ogden Woodruff 00, Henry Neumann 00. Louis I. Dublin '01, Klias Lieberman 03, Ber- nard I.. Shientag 01, Paul T. Kammerer 06, Leon Coo|H-r ‘10, Frederick Zorn 10. Jacob Schapiro 11, James W. Don- oghue ‘1 I, Donald . Roberts 19, Manuel Leibowitz 28B. To Skkvk Through 1910: Charles A. Klsbcrg 90, Charles K. I.ucke '93, William K. Grady '97, Waldemar KaempITert 97, Herbert M. Holton '99, Arthur Dickson 09, I,eo Kisen 18, rlhur Taft '20, Howard W. Fensterslock 28, Abraham Ra kin ‘31, Joseph L. Frascona '32, Ralph M. Jersky 31. m

Page 112 text:

The smoker at which Mortimer Karpp spoke of a modi- fied (i. e. houseless) House Plan is now legendary, and overgrown with a good ileal of undeserved romanticism. But in the actuality of a dynamic or- ganization at 292 Convent, stands a lasting tribute to a single individual and a group of enthusiastic, socially hungry college youth. In the calm of the winter of 1934, instructors in Townsend Harris Hall found their rooms stormed hy small hands of enterprising freshmen, eager to he the first to set up active House sections. Frequenters of the faculty lounge were no end disturbed with the presence on Thursdays, at 4, of noisy neophytes, consuming cake and coffee (sometimes with sugar, but more often without), and generally making that section of the campus appear to be inhabited by normal human beings. It was the plan of Mr. Karpp to set up small groups of from twenty-five to fifty freshmen, chosen at random, and observe bow they would acclimate themselves to each other, and whether they would present a more integrated ap|»earance to the College community. Houses were to In- named after promi- nent alumni and others who had made noteworthy and desirable contributions to the College ... in a conscious at- tempt to develop a spirit of loyalty and tradition which most highly ur- banized colleges lack. Out of the mad scramble for names first appeared Sim, Bowker, Bemsen, Werner, Weir, Dean, Harris, ami Shepard, with Briggs, Gibbs, and Abbe following at a later date. Thursday afternoon coffee hours be- gan to be held in shifts as the House Plan membership lists increased; and the participation of I'lannitcs In-gan a very successful revitalization of a moribund system of intramural ath- letics. Faculty members were ensnared by the boys, and the unblushing pres- ence of such men as Professors Dick- son, Wright, and Otis, and Messrs. Seliger, Harvey, Weissman (now at 23rd Street), along with Mr. Karpp, was a tradition-shattering phenomenon. Through varying shifts in |M rsonnel and cleavages from the original system of chance-selected groups, about two hundred and fifty students were pleas- antly surprised to find themselves housed in a furniture-less dwelling at 292 Coment in May 1933. Attacked on the one hand as radical, and on the other as an administration dose of sugar coated purgative to the dis- gruntled ami disillusioned students at the (College, the new organization at- tracted the attention «4 the Class of 1910, and that group endowed the I lous« Plan with a gift of one thousand dollars, which was used to buy much needed apparatus on which to rest one's weary posterior. The House Plan Association, a mem- bership corporation, was set up under the presidency of Dean Cottschall, who hail been, and continued to be, a hearty sympathizer, and active worker for the social fiedgling. The first bequest was followed in turn by others from the Bowker family, from the Class of 19().‘ , from the Class of 1911, and from the College post of the American legion. Mrs. i-cflingwcll, nice - to the late Kdward M. Shep- ard, presented the building at 292 to the House Plan Association in the spring of 1937, and the gift was marked by simple, yet impressive cere- monies the following November. The day of homemade benches ami seats improvised from piles of books has passed . . . and some regret it, for to them, the pioneer spirit has gone, too. Among the proud |H ssessions of the Plannites is a modest but growing li- brary; a well-equipped music room (with its six hundred dollar radio- victrola): the 1910 Hoorn, among whose great claims to fame is the fact that it is one of the extra-curricular stamping grounds of Professor Morris 108