John Jay Hall

1100 Amsterdam Avenue | also 515 West 114th Street, 519 West 114th Street | Morningside Heights | built 1912

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1927

    Columbia finishes a 15-story 'skyscraper dorm' designed by McKim, Mead & White

    After the First World War, rising enrollment and steep Morningside Heights rents pushed Columbia to build more housing, and this tower was meant to nearly double the height of its older dormitories. Originally called Students Hall, it was among the last buildings by McKim, Mead & White and was finished in 1927. Besides rooms, it held a dining hall, a rathskeller and fourth-floor offices for student publications such as the Jester and the Spectator.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1929

    September 21

    Federico García Lorca moves into room 1231 of John Jay Hall

    Lorca came to Columbia in summer 1929 to take an English class at University Extension and first lived in room 617 of Furnald Hall. On September 21, 1929, the John Jay Hall register shows him moving into room 1231. He had left by February 1, 1930, giving a forwarding address of 542 West 112th Street, a building advertising furnished rooms in the student newspaper.

    Source: blogs.library.columbia.edu

  3. 1967

    April 20

    Anti-war demonstrators corner Marine recruiters in the lobby

    Columbia let two Marine sergeants set up a recruiting desk in the lobby. After a Students for a Democratic Society rally at the sundial, demonstrators marched over and packed the lobby, shouting down the recruiters. More than 200 surrounded the team for forty minutes, at least three fistfights broke out, and a flying wedge of athletes and ROTC members finally led the Marines out. Dean Irving J. Koff had asked the crowd to clear the lobby, but the demonstrators refused to move.

    Source: thecrimson.com

  4. 2022

    March

    The student lounge is renamed for Walter and Shirley Wang after a $10 million gift

    In March 2022 Columbia gave the John Jay student lounge the names of Walter and Shirley Wang, a son and daughter-in-law of the Taiwanese businessman Wang Yung-ching. Their $10 million gift was meant to improve social spaces for undergraduates across campus. The wood-paneled lounge sits in a hall that houses first-year students and the university's main undergraduate dining hall.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 49 buildings with stories in Morningside Heights