Yeshiva University Zysman Hall

2540 Amsterdam Avenue | also 526 West 187th Street, 501 West 186th Street | Washington Heights | built 1929

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.

1928
Yeshiva College opens in its new Moorish-style Main Building
Yeshiva College was founded in 1928 with 31 students, moving from the Lower East Side into this building on Amsterdam Avenue. Charles B. Meyers Associates mixed Art Deco and Moorish Revival, with domes, towers and turrets in colored stone, copper and tile. Its auditorium later hosted speakers including Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion and Eleanor Roosevelt. It was renamed Zysman Hall in 2001.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1938
Enrollment at Yeshiva College grows nearly twentyfold
Yeshiva College began in 1928 with 31 students and housed itself in a Main Building that blends Moorish Revival and Art Deco touches. The Great Depression halted plans for further similar buildings on the campus for decades, yet enrollment reached 578 by 1938. The auditorium has a plaster ceiling shaped like a Middle Eastern tent, and speakers there have included Golda Meir and David Ben-Gurion.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
2001
The Main Building is renamed Zysman Hall
In 2001 Yeshiva University's original Main Building took the name Zysman Hall, honoring David H. Zysman, a former vice president of development. It had been renamed Tanenbaum Hall in 1978 after a $1 million gift from Joseph and Faye Tanenbaum, then went back to Main Building in 1994.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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