Brooklyn College | Our History

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

Once known as the Wood-Harmon property, this 40- acre field in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn eventually became the site of the new campus for the growing Brooklyn College.
liberal arts college in the city.

The goal was to provide a high-quality education to the sons and daughters of immigrants, working people, and others who could not afford private higher education. More than seventy years later, that remains the College's goal.

The first classes were held in the Willoughby Building on the corner of Willoughby and Bridge streets in downtown Brooklyn. In 1927 several floors in the Chamber of Commerce Building (66 Court Street) were rented for Hunter College, and the next year additional accommodations were obtained at 383 Pearl Street-the building that would become the official headquarters for the entire College.

Mayor Jimmy Walker appointed Dr. William A. Boylan as the College's first president. An assistant superintendent with the Board of Education in charge of building projects, critics claimed his chief qualification was that the mayor was a former student of his, and had rewarded his teacher with a series of plum jobs in his administration.

The 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). Classes were held in different buildings, and students were forced to cross busy streets between classes. 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

In 1934, Randolph Evans, a young architect working for the Wood-Harmon Corporation, spent a few days drafting a plan for a college campus on the large plot of land his employer owned in Midwood. At the time, the land was used as a golf course, a football field, and the staging area for the big-top shows of Barnum and Bailey Circus. Evans sketched out an entire plan of a Georgian-style campus facing a central quadrangle, and anchored by a library building with a tall tower.

The original Brooklyn College campus as alumni of the 1930's remember it.

When finished with his drawings, Evans walked over to Pearl Street without an appointment and presented them to President Boylan. Boylan was pleased with what he saw, and the next day they drove to Midwood to look at the property. On December 21, 1934 the Board of Estimate of the City of New York approved the purchase of the Wood-Harmon lot for $1,625,528. The next month the Public Works Administration of the Federal Government allocated $5 million for the construction of the buildings. On October 2, 1935, Mayor La Guardia took a silver-plated shovel and symbolically broke ground for the new construction. Also present were President Boylan and Borough President Raymond V. Ingersoll. All three men would later have campus buildings named in their honor.

A year later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt came on campus and laid the cornerstone of the Brooklyn College gymnasium in front of seven thousand people gathered on the grounds.

"I have seen Brooklyn College in pictures and now I have seen the real article with my own eyes," Roosevelt intoned. "Every time the Mayor of New York comes to Washington I tremble, because it means he wants something, and he almost always gets it. This project is killing two birds with one stone. It is not only putting to work thousands of people who need work, but it also is improving educational facilities now and for generations to come.

"There has been much suffering in this depression, but much good also has come out of it. It has given an opportunity to better conditions for the young people. I am interested in all projects for the improvement of education, and my wish for Brooklyn College is the fine future it deserves. May it live to build a better American citizenship."

Brooklyn College library

In 1947 the Hygiene Building (as the gymnasium was called) was formally renamed Roosevelt Hall at a ceremony attended by Franklin Roosevelt, Jr.

In 1938, President Boylan stepped down and was succeeded by 39-year-old University of Chicago economics professor Harry Gideonse, who led the College for the next 27 years. An innovative educator, and a fearless advocate for the College, he built a distinguished faculty that included African American historian John Hope Franklin. Decisions he made before and during the McCarthy era�to expel left-leaning academics, to close the student newspaper Vanguard, and to shut down student government�remain highly contentious.

In 1961, Brooklyn College became a member of the City University of New York. Apart from student fees, the College continued to provide a free education for those who met its stringent entrance requirements. In 1965, after the CUNY board demanded "fealty" from the CUNY college presidents in the matter of imposing tuition, President Gideonse resigned, along with John Meng at Hunter College.

The next ten years were the most tumultuous in the College's history. The Vietnam War combined with the demands of emerging ethnic and racial empowerment movements led to almost weekly protests. The Quadrangle, once dominated by Gideonse's "keep off the grass" signs, became a dustbowl. Francis P. Kilcoyne, Harold C. Syrett, and George A. Peck followed one after the other as presidents of the College. In keeping with the spirit of the times, in 1970 CUNY instituted an Open Admissions policy that allowed any New York City resident, regardless of their academic credentials or ability, the right to attend a CUNY school. As a result, the enrollment swelled to more than 30,000 students in only a few years.

This led to severe space and budget concerns, inherited by John Kneller, the College's sixth president. From 1970 to 1978, Kneller faced the severe problems that culminated with the 1975 budget emergency. The College shut down its downtown campus, and began "retrenchment"-cutting back of tenured faculty.

In the 1980s, under new president Robert Hess, Brooklyn College returned to its tradition of high standards with the adoption in 1981 of the core curriculum, a rigorous, ten-course requirement that gives students an excellent foundation in the liberal arts. In 1989 the core curriculum was cited in a report by the National Endowment for the Humanities for having led "to the revitalization of Brooklyn College and drawn much public attention and praise." In 1992 Brooklyn College President Hess died in office and Vernon Lattin, an English professor from the University of New Mexico, became president. His eight-year term was marked by an accelerated building campaign, and a major renovation and expansion of the library.

Throughout its history, Brooklyn College's reputation has attracted an outstanding faculty. Stars of the academic world came and taught on campus, including psychologist Abraham Maslow; the poets John Ashbery and Allen Ginsberg; novelist Susan Fromberg Schaeffer; historian and hero of the Hungarian uprising Bela Kiraly; pioneering political scientist Belle Zeller; Educational theorist Carleton Washburne; historians John Hope Franklin and Hans Trefousse; German scholar Harry Slochower; classicists Alice Kober, Naphtali Lewis, and Ethyle Wolfe; legal historian Samuel Konefsky; speech pathologist Robert West; and geneticist Seymour Fogel. The Design Department, later renamed the Art Department, has a particularly strong tradition of attracting heavyweights such as Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko,Serge Chermayeff, Jimmy Ernst, Gyorgy Kepes, Burgoyne Diller, Carl Holty, Harry Holtzman, Lennart Anderson, Alfred Russell, Philip Pearlstein, William T. Williams, the photographer Walter Rosenblum, and the sculptor Lee Bontecou.

This building surrounded the central quadrangle and was first called the "Academic Building", later Boylan Hall.

The tradition of academic excellence is reflected in the accomplishments of Brooklyn College graduates. More than three thousand alumni are listed in the series of Marquis Who's Who directories; more than three hundred alumni are presidents, vice-presidents, or chairpersons of the boards of major corporations. Each year the College's graduates receive more than 350 acceptances to law schools and medical schools, including such institutions as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the University of Pennsylvania. Past graduates include novelist Irwin Shaw, '34; radio pioneer Himan Brown, '34; football coach Allie Sherman, '43; Noble Prize-winning biochemist Stanley Cohen, '43; Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, '46; film director Paul Mazursky, '51; Brooklyn Academy of Music impresario Harvey Lichtenstein, '51; novelist Paule Marshall, '52; noted defense attorney and legal scholar Alan Dershowitz, '59; New Line Cinema CEO Michael Lynne, '61; California Senator Barbara Boxer, '62; author Frank McCourt, M.A., '67; Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, '70; CEO of Adobe Systems Incorporated Bruce Chizen, '77; actor Jimmy Smits, '80; and novelist Gloria Naylor, '81.

An outstanding faculty, highly praised academic programs, and distinguished graduates--these are the hallmarks of success at Brooklyn College. We are continuing to develop programs and curricula that will train forthcoming generations of students. Today, under the administration of its eighth president, Dr. Christoph M. Kimmich, Brooklyn College is building on the traditions that have given it a place among the nation's distinguished institutions of higher education.