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

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.

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 32 text:

The GATEHOUSE—home of President and Mrs. Gallagher. the new classroom buildings more conducive to painless learning. Eisner Hall, situated in a grassy dell near the St. Nicholas Terrace gate to the South Campus was the showplacc of the new site. Named for Mark Eisner, a graduate of the College, and chairman of the Board of Higher Education from 1932-38, Eisner Hall was the new home of the College's Art Department. With the opening of the South Campus all social science classes, except Psychology met in Wagner Hall, just East of the Finley Center. The three-story gothic structure was named for Senator Robert F. Wagner ’98, one of seven distinguished alumni to receive honorary degrees from the College. Containing a large gymnasium and a swim- ming pool, Park Hall was the site of Wom- en’s Hygiene classes. The building wa$ named in honor of Dr. William H. Park An evening snowfall turns the South Campus into a soft, white wonderland.