More Space Needed to Alleviate Overcrowding

The new building did not sufficiently alleviate the overcrowding problem since enrollment in the business school continued to grow throughout the 1930’s, peaking at slightly more than 10,000 day and evening session students in 1940.

In the years following the end of World War II, the issue of space was as critical as ever. A Feb. 13, 1946 New York Times headline read “More Space Asked for City College: It Must be doubled or tripled in next 10 years. Dr. Wright tells Alumni meeting.” By 1957 the only permanent increase in space was the acquisition of the old Children’s Court building on 22nd Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues to be used as a student center.

The court building, built on land which once belonged to City College in 1913 and dedicated in 1916, was dubbed the “the largest and finest the kind in the world,…” The description of the court when it opened was as follows:

The court house is approximately 81 feet front and 75 feet deep, has four stories and a basement, and a façade of limestone. There is a great entrance hall, with the records room at the rear and, at one side, the rooms where the probation officers receive the probationers. The main court room, the second division, and the clerk’s room are on the second floor.

On the third floor are the detention rooms for boys and girls, large sunny rooms. There are plants and cases of books and, in the girls’ room, a number of dolls. Back of the girls’ room is the spacious nursery, where mothers can care for, dress or bathe babies. The interior of the building is finished in Italian marble and English quartered oak. (The New York Times, January 26, 1916, pg 7).

The courthouse moved in 1953 and by 1960 the college had acquired and renovated the building in an effort to solve the space problem.

After independence in 1968 additional space was rented at 257 Park Avenue South and a new building was purchased at 155 East 24th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues.

Additional space was temporarily acquired at Cathedral High School on 50th Street and Lexington Avenue and used as a freshmen center.

 

There were a long term plans to build a new campus in the Atlantic Terminal site in Brooklyn at an estimated cost of 73 to 120 million dollars, but the fiscal crisis of 1975 halted those plans.

 

The only permanent new structure acquired after that was the old Family Court building. It was built in 1939 and constructed in a “modern classic” style. The building was meant to complement the Children’s Court next door, as a number of relief panels with family motifs visible on the side facing Lexington Avenue and 22nd Street demonstrate.

To cope with a lack of space, Baruch was forced to rent space in two additional buildings.