Manhattan College - Manhattanite Yearbook (Riverdale, NY)

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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

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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.

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was the ordinary gateway through which early visitors approached this edge of the wilderness. Things moved slowly. ln 1900 a design for a new building was presented that followed the general lines of schoolhouses of that day. Tight and high, the plans called for a live-story building, lavish with high-ceilinged hall- ways. To the back, the Brothers were to be provided with overhanging iron bal- conies whence they might look down on a cemented walk around a most efficient- looking power house, whose high stack was its most important piece of archi- tecture. Fortunately the plan was never realized. Through the years the execu- tion of the plan was interrupted, until, with the advent of World War I, disci- pline at Manhattan was taken over by Military authorities and the College bustled with the needs and demands of a Student Training Corps. Shortly after the end of the war a competition was announced for a group of buildings to grace the Spuyten Duyvil site. Seven important Hrms sent plans, each with a merit of its own. Spanish, Renaissance, Gothic and modernistic in- terpretations of the needs of the new college were excellently drawn and lav- ishly presented. Most of them called for a series of buildings strung along the hill, with a central mall overlooking the sub- way. The plans adopted were made by O'Connor and Delaney, who, in orient- ing their buildings, provided maximum exploitation of light, a restrained South- ern colonial Georgian design, and a cent- ral Quadrangle, whose lawns and trees were to be as significant a part of our concept of Manhattan as are the great arches they designed to knit the build- ings together. The beauty and success of these de- signs have been proved with time. New Yorkers, not familiar with the College are always pleasantly surprised to come upon this green in the city, this peace in the hub-hub, this architectural harmony so often lacking in college building groups. lt is nearly twenty-five years now since the first four buildings graced the hill. The Administration building, Manhattan and De La Salle Halls and the Alumni Gymnasium were finished in 1923.