Founding

Court Street Campus

Brooklyn College was founded on May 15, 1930, by the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York as the first public coeducational liberal arts college in the city.

The college was created to provide a high-quality education to the sons and daughters of immigrants, working people and others who could not afford private higher education. Eighty years later, that remains our goal.

New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker appointed William A. Boylan, a Board of Education assistant superintendent in charge of building projects, as the college’s first president.

The first classes were held in the Willoughby Building, in downtown Brooklyn. In 1928, the college obtained additional accommodations at 383 Pearl Street—the building that would become our official headquarters.

These early days of the college were set in the busiest section of Brooklyn, an area near Borough Hall that was dominated by an elevated train track (since torn down), streetcars and the shopping mecca of Fulton Street. Classes were held in different buildings, forcing students to cross bustling streets. A student poet at the time had these words to say about the “campus” of the early 1930s:

Oh, Brooklyn College, thou art loveliest seen
In gentle springtime, when traffic lights are green