Borough of Manhattan Community College
224 West Street | also 77 Harrison Street, 100 North Moore Street, 66 Harrison Street | Tribeca | built 1980
Open on the map9 entries
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.
- 1974
Mayor Beame breaks ground on BMCC's long-awaited building near the foot of Chambers Street
Plans for a permanent home for Borough of Manhattan Community College were first announced in 1968, and Mayor Abraham Beame broke ground six years later. The complex was then scheduled to open in 1977 at a cost of $54 million. Until it moved in 1983, the college made do with run-down rooms spread across five office buildings between 47th and 68th Streets.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1977
The Board of Higher Education ousts BMCC's president amid a dispute over an accreditation report
The Board of Higher Education removed Edgar D. Draper as president of Borough of Manhattan Community College on the night of August 29, 1977, saying it acted for the good of the college. The board had been investigating, since that June, whether he used improper means to persuade the head of an evaluation team to rewrite its report to make the administration look better.
Source: The New York Times
- 1978
Accreditors call BMCC's scattered midtown classrooms inadequate to a degree that defies description
A September 1980 Times report said that, two years earlier, the Middle States accrediting association had judged the physical facilities of Borough of Manhattan Community College "so inadequate as to defy description." The college rented space scattered around midtown, and the association threatened its accreditation unless it improved. The article was about work resuming on the college's new building.
Source: The New York Times
- 1980
Work resumes on BMCC's half-built campus after the fiscal crisis, at more than double the first estimate
Once the foundation was in and structural steel girders had gone up, the city's fiscal crisis stopped construction of BMCC's new building. Work started again only in late 1980. A CUNY vice chancellor told the Times that the finished complex would cost $127.3 million, more than twice the $54 million budgeted when ground was broken.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1983
BMCC opens its new four-block main building in lower Manhattan
After nearly two decades in rented midtown space, BMCC opened a new building in January 1983 that stretches four blocks between Chambers Street and North Moore Street in lower Manhattan. It became the college's main campus. Enrollment had passed 6,000 day and evening students by 1974, and BMCC later became the largest college in the City University system.
Source: bmcc.cuny.edu
- 1983
The building houses the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, with 913 and 262 seats
The BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, inside the college building at 199 Chambers Street, opened in 1983. It has two theaters, one with 913 seats and one with 262, and presents concerts, children's theater, stand-up, film retrospectives and dance companies. It has also been a venue for the Tribeca Film Festival.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
BMCC reopens for classes behind police lines three weeks after September 11
On October 1, 2001, BMCC held its first classes since the September 11 attack, with welcome-back banners hanging. Students had to show college IDs to police officers merely to get near the campus, and again to enter in single file. Because the Chambers Street front door was still cordoned off, they came in through the back on North Moore Street, and some classes met in trailers or in rooms hastily put up in hallways to stand in for classrooms and labs lost at the damaged annex.
Source: Internet Archive
- 2001
BMCC's women's basketball team applauds an opponent for actually showing up
When the Nassau Community College women's team came to BMCC on Chambers Street for a January 23, 2001 game, the home Lady Panthers welcomed them with applause. Seven games on their 29-game schedule had been lost to cancellations or no-shows, and coach Rodney Carr called that unheard of at the college level. BMCC went into the regional tournament at 21-3 with a third straight CUNY conference title, having placed third nationally the year before.
Source: Internet Archive
- 2001
On September 11, the college's gymnasium becomes a triage site and the building a command center
On the morning of September 11, 2001, students and staff heard explosions from the World Trade Center, a few blocks away. The Port Authority used the gymnasium of BMCC's main building to triage survivors, and the college's nursing department donated medical supplies. The Port Authority set up generators there and used the building as its command center.
“Port Authority of New York and New Jersey used the gymnasium at BMCC's main building to triage survivors…”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
Nearby
- William B. Nichols House41 Harrison Street | 5 entries
- Joseph Randolph House39 Harrison Street | 5 entries
- Wilson Hunt House37 Harrison Street | 4 entries
- Ebenezer Miller House33 Harrison Street | 4 entries
- Jacob Ruckle House31 Harrison Street | 4 entries
- Sarah R. Lambert House29 Harrison Street | 4 entries