Broadway Hall and Morningside Heights Library

2900 Broadway | also 556 West 114th Street, 2906 Broadway | Morningside Heights | built 2000

Open on the map6 entries

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

  1. 1903

    George Keister designs a five-story Broadway townhouse that becomes the Sigma Chi house

    Architect George Keister designed a five-story townhouse in 1903 that became the Sigma Chi fraternity house. Columbia's 2000 announcement says it was once home to Lou Gehrig while he was a student at the university. The house was slated for demolition, but community interest saved its facade, which Columbia incorporated into the new Broadway Residence Hall.

    Source: columbia.edu

  2. 1914

    The Columbia Branch library opens in Low Library as a reading collection for students and faculty

    The New York Public Library branch now on Broadway at 113th Street began in 1914 as the Columbia Branch, a recreational collection for students and faculty inside Columbia's Low Library. When Butler Library took over from Low as the university's main library in 1937, it was built with a room designed for the branch.

    Source: New York Public Library

  3. 2000

    September 8

    Columbia opens the $50 million Broadway Residence Hall, designed by Robert A. M. Stern

    Columbia announced on September 8, 2000, that its Broadway Residence Hall had opened to upperclass students. Designed by alumnus Robert A. M. Stern, the 14-story, 140,000-square-foot building holds 336 rooms with 371 beds, 80 percent of them singles. Its second and third floors house a Senior Class Center, practice rooms and a computer lab. It was the first dormitory Columbia had built since Schapiro Hall in 1988.

    Source: columbia.edu

  4. 2000

    Neighbors' input cuts the planned tower from 21 stories to 14 and changes the brick

    Before design began, Columbia convened a working group of architect Robert A. M. Stern, university project managers, local residents' associations, alumni and community members. The university called it the first new Columbia building to build community consultation fully into its design. The group's suggestions cut the height from 21 stories to 14, to match nearby apartment houses, and moved the library from the middle of the building to the street corner. They also led to tawny brick in place of Columbia's usual red.

    Source: columbia.edu

  5. 2001

    Stern's library interior borrows from early Carnegie branches, below a tawny-brick dorm

    Robert A. M. Stern Architects completed the project in 2001: a 14-story residence hall with retail space and a 17,000-square-foot branch library on its two lower floors. The cast-stone-trimmed tawny brick was chosen after talks with Columbia and neighbors who wanted something closer to Broadway's apartment houses than to the campus's red brick. Inside the library, paneled columns, built-in wood bookshelves, decorative metal railings and a slate entrance floor echo the restrained classicism of early twentieth-century Carnegie branches.

    Source: ramsa.com

  6. 2001

    The Morningside Heights Library settles into its permanent home on Broadway

    The library moved to a temporary location on 113th Street in 1996 while Butler Library was renovated. Its present building at Broadway and 113th Street opened in 2001, designed by Robert A. M. Stern Architects and shared with a Columbia dormitory and a retail shop. The branch, formerly called the Columbia Branch, offers adult, teen and children's collections plus programs such as author readings and story hours.

    Source: New York Public Library

Further reading

Nearby

All 49 buildings with stories in Morningside Heights