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

Page 30 text:

THE JOHN H. FINLEY STUDENT CENTER — long awaited: eagerly received. On a sunny morning in September 1955, President Buell G. Gallagher, in a brief tape-cutting ceremony, officially opened the College’s new eighteen and one-half acre South Campus. Formerly the Manhattan- villc College of the Sacred Heart, the new site included six classroom buildings, the John H. Finley Student Center and Presi- dent Gallagher’s home, the Gate House. “The Campus” of September 19, 1955, in a special South Campus supplement hailed the acquisition as “The beginning of a new era at the College.’’ Even the “New York Times” was sufficiently moved by the prospect of a tree-studded campus for the College's previously asphalt-bound students, to comment on it editorially. A Its. Gallagher, flanked by Friday Night Dance Committee, Gloria Kingsley, S. C. Prexy and Dean Brunstetler, cuts ribbon officially opening the Finley Center Grand Ballroom.

Page 29 text:

WE ARRIVE $126,500 was prepared, considerably less than the approximately $160,000 recom- mended in February of 1955 by Dr. Alton Lewis, then Student Center Director. (4) The $3.00 student fee, which became a source of controversy, was approved at a special meeting called by President Gal- lagher. The President urged quick action so that the fee decision could be submitted to the Board of Higher Education for formal approval before the deadline for printing the College catalogue arrived. It was deemed necessary to include mention of the fee in the catalogue. The $3.00 fee was approved over two months before final budget for the Center was okayed. In other action the Board of Directors channeled much of the administrative work for the Center through the Department of Student Activities and Student Govern- ment. Dr. Lewis resigned as Student Cen- ter Director during the summer and Dean James S. Peace was named Director. When the student body returned from the summer vacation, it found all the build- ings, except one, ready for use. The excep- tion was the John H. Finley Student Cen- ter. The construction company which had contracted to refurbish the building walked off the job in August with much work still to be completed. Most of the remaining work was on the fourth floor, which was closed until the Fall term was nearly over. The three lower floors had been opened for limited use at the beginning of the semester and a month later were under full usage. At this time the ping-pong and pool rooms unlocked their doors. The brand new tables and implements dazzled many a veteran of the old Army Hall lounge. Sidelights to the South Campus open- ing developed: The History Department, which was assigned offices in Wagner Hall, found these rooms conducive- to clean liv- ing. Once used as dormitories by the nuns of the Manhattanvillc College, the Wagner Hall offices were equipped with bathtubs. Hackctt Hall, which contains a little theater, was boarded up, to the dismay of fledgling thespians. Hackett and Abbe Halls will be given to the City in return for either the Music and Art High School building or money to build comparable classroom space. The area on which Abbe and Hackctt now stand will be used to build a new elementary school. Eisner Hall, doubtless the most attractive of all the buildings, became the new home of the Art Department. The department further beautified it by taking an extensive statue and painting collection out of moth balls and putting the works on display. The distance between the two campuses proved to be a thorny problem. Lateness to class was not limited only to students. Shortness of breath affected professors more than their younger students, but both were forced to increase their stride and quicken their pace. All agreed that this was not an attractive solution but was prefer- able to a longer school day — a move that a lengthened bctwccn-class break would have necessitated. In the second half of the school year the South Campus came into its own. The Fin- ley Center was fully opened and the con- fusion of the first term in Manhattanvillc was substantially gone. A metamorphosis began the first year at Manhattanvillc — for the College it meant an increase of our physical size and influence in the community; for the lower classmen it may be the end of his days as a subway student; for the Senior, unfortunately it's been just a pleasant, but shortlived, excur- sion into the College’s new way of life. —Weissi.f.r

Page 31 text:

Although the partially completed Finley Center, the distance between Campuses and the separation of Liberal Arts from Technology and Science classes were to stir heated controversy later, the new classroom buildings and grassy expanses of the South Campus were an immediate hit with the students. The center mall of the South Campus quickly supplanted the Quadran- gle as the mccca for the College’s sun-wor- shippers in the mild fall days of 1955. And students, accustomed to the peeling walls and plaster snow storms of Army and Fin- ley Halls, found the refurbished interiors of The rustic picnic grove gave way for the construction of the Mortis Raphael Cohen Library. MARK EISNER Hall the haven for the artists of tomorrow. ROBERT F. WAGNER Hall — home of the History and Sociol- ogy-Anthropology Departments.