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

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4:15 at the Army Hall library. The place: Tech Library The time: Finals week Future teachers did their homework here Cornerstone laid 1927—to be completed... The reading room of the main library

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The Morris Raphael Cohen Library, as it will be. LIBRARIES Play that high note attain! Back-tracking the news in the periodical library.

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MANHATTANVILLE The College, after a six year wait, un- veiled in the Fall term of 1955, a Great Equalizer’ — the South Campus. Freshmen to Seniors, faculty and administration, were reduced to the same level: confusion abet- ted partially and painfully by trial and error groping. Only the College’s coeds, who had been using the Park Gymnasium for Hygiene classes, found the going tenable. Once things settled down, however, everyone took a studied look at the South Campus, and in general found it to be a substantial improvement. There were few laments, if any, for Army and Finley Halls, the two abandoned buildings that President Buell G. Gallagher termed “educational slums.” The spacious, grassy lawns of the South Campus were quickly accepted as a pleas- ant fixture; the John H. Finley Student Center began to open doors as soon as the interiors could be completed; even a crypt- filled catacomb, once used as a tomb, was revealed to College eyes by an enterprising student reporter. The frustrating delays that occurred be- fore the South Campus opening became submerged in the immediate desire to ex- plore and use the new facilities. The “prayerbook to textbook” switch story was relegated to the record books. The record shows that the change started in 1949, when the nuns at the Manhattan- villc College of the Sacred Heart, a con- vent and college, felt they could develop a program better in suburban surround- ings. After condemnation proceedings, their eighteen and one-half acre property, which extends from 130th Street to 135th Street, between St. Nicholas Terrace and Convent Avenue, was turned over to the City in September 1952. The date marked the end of a three year period of haggling over money, with $8,800,620 agreed on as the price for the property. After the keys to Manhattanville were turned over to the College, plans, revised plans and still further revisions tell a story of red tape wrapped around confusion to produce a package of delays. By the end of 1954 everything seemed ready to roll. The refurbishing of the South Campus was scheduled to be completed by the end of March. A sixteen member Board of Direc- tors was formed, composed of eight stu- dents, four faculty members and four alumni and began the job of planning the operation of the Student Center just before the start of the Spring Term of 1955. The Student Center, a building devoted exclusively to extra-curricular student ac- tivities, seemed appropriate for the coun- try’s third largest college, but for a free school of higher learning it was a unique experiment. The City College Fund, sup- ported by alumni contributions, agreed to pay part of the expenses of operation in addition to the center’s refurbishing costs. A student fee, eventually set at $3.00 per term, would complement the alumni con- tributions. The Board of Directors divided itself into committees to study and make recommen- dations on the various aspects of Stu- dent Center administration, furnishing and financing. Working through the spring and summer, the Board came up with several important recommendations: (1) Manag- ing Boards, composed entirely of students, were set up for both day and evening ses- sions for the purpose of running the Center on a day to day basis. These were later combined into single Boards for both ses- sions. (2) Broad policy would be made by the Board of Directors. (3) A budget of