Shepard Hall, City College

229 Convent Avenue | also 221I Convent Avenue, 259 Convent Avenue | Manhattanville | built 1962

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.

1907
George B. Post completes the Gothic Revival Shepard Hall
Architect George B. Post designs Shepard Hall in the English Perpendicular Gothic style, built from Manhattan schist excavated during the building's own foundation work and nearby subway tunneling. The $6.5 million complex centers on a Great Hall that stretches 185 feet long and 89 feet wide, rising 63 feet beneath elaborate white terra cotta ornament.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1908
May
City College dedicates its Gothic campus, with Mark Twain in the audience
Escaping a crowded building at Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street, City College bought land at West 138th Street in 1900 and hired George B. Post, who designed Shepard Hall in English Perpendicular Gothic. It was built of dark Manhattan schist dug out during subway construction and trimmed with white terra cotta gargoyles and ornament. Completed in 1907 at a cost of $6.5 million, the campus was dedicated in May 1908 before guests including Mark Twain.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1986
A $150 million restoration begins on crumbling Shepard Hall
Post's terra cotta had been set without expansion joints, and by the mid-1980s the building was failing, with its main tower in structural trouble and more than 70,000 terra cotta pieces damaged or missing. Architect Carl Stein began a $150 million restoration in 1986. By 2011 the work was about 80 percent done.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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