Manhattan College - Manhattanite Yearbook (Riverdale, NY)

Page 19 text:

Broadway, was blasted out of the rock West of the College in the early seventies. Years brought the beginning of an in- cipient Quadrangle, the erection of the Church of the Annunciation on the Southeast corner of the property, an amazing rise in enrollment and the initia- tion of many a cherished tradition. Here it was that Professor Fitzsimmons in- augurated the first classical courses 5 here philosophy classes were held in Ciceron- ian Latin. Here Irish oratory and the beauties and sorrows of Erin were the topics for study and discussion. Here the future bright lights of the priesthood, of the law and of professional life were molded to those ideals that still stand as the objectives of the training given by the Christian Brothers.

Page 18 text:

cessors, the nostalgic appreciation of the beauty that is today Manhattan. lt began away back in the fifties, al- most a century ago. The Brothers first established the Academy of the Holy lnfancy on Old Bloomingdale Road at l3lst Street. A sylvan grove near the banks of the American Rhinef' was the description. of old Manhattan at that time. WVhen the collegiate charter was granted by the State Board of Regents in 1863, the College was a modest four- story building amidst weeping willow trees, with a small hemicycle of driveway set in a wooden picket fence. The school faced East on the Old Bloomingdale Road. Grand Boulevard, now part of

Page 20 text:

In 1870 appeared our tirst college peri- odical, a monthly called The Little Schoolmatef' The Manhattan College News Letter, then known as the Al- bum, was also iirst published in that year. The Mirror,,' Green Horn, and the Green Sheet were some of the other publications on our campus before the coming of the 'tQuadrangle. This was the era when the entire col- lege turned out in top hat and tails to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade. It was also in this era that the Manhattan College Alumni Association, oldest or- ganization of its kind in Catholic Col- leges, was founded. On Jasper Oval, now a part of City College, our athletic teams made sports history. Indeed. in 1886 the New York Giants presented a pennant to the Jaspers as the best college team of the vear. The ever-increasing enrollment re- fused to allow the Brothers to rest at 132nd St., and shortly before the turn of the century they were in search of a larger site. The decision to move was made just in time, for shortly after, the construction of the subway and the cut- ting through ot a new Broadway, brought to Manhattan the roar of modernity and its attendant clouds of dust. A sixty-tive acre plot at Irvington-on- Hudson was purchased to hold the new Manhattan. The location was beautiful, but the project died aborning. Through a clause in the will ot its former owner, Manhattan was unable to build a school on the property, and once again the Brothers were in search of a site. Finally in 1902 the present rocky eminence was purchased and held for the maturing of plans. The present location of the College, although within the city limits, was at that time no easier to reach than the Vlfestchester site would have been. Ancient though the Seventh Avenue Subway may seem, not until 1909 did it even reach 225th Street. it was to be years before it was extended to Van Cortlandt Park. The little Van Cort- landt station of the Putnam Division