International Affairs Building

420 West 118th Street | also 1165 Amsterdam Avenue | Morningside Heights | built 1970

Open on the map9 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. 1946

    Columbia founds the School of International Affairs to train postwar diplomats and officials

    The school began after World War II with a practical aim: preparing diplomats, officials and other professionals for the complexities of the postwar world. It grew out of regional institutes that drew on Columbia's historians, economists, political scientists and linguists, and first awarded the Master of International Affairs degree. It was originally housed in a row of brownstones.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1951

    Dwight Eisenhower, then Columbia's president, sponsors the Institute of War and Peace Studies

    Columbia set up the institute in 1951 with Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the university's president, as its sponsor, to study the harm war does to human progress. It is known today as the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, one of the centers based at the School of International and Public Affairs. By 1967 the school also had eight regional institutes covering most of the world.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1965

    Harrison & Abramovitz design a limestone-and-concrete slab on the East Campus podium

    The firm designed the tower in 1965 as part of Columbia's East Campus superblock, raised on a podium beside the Law School. Fifteen stories of gridded limestone and poured concrete, with deep recessed windows, stand on two massive piers. The $21 million building has entrances on the fourth and sixth floors, and a sunken courtyard with a glass dome lights the library below.

    Source: nycurbanism.com

  4. 1970

    The International Affairs Building replaces an apartment house and brownstone beside Casa Italiana

    When Casa Italiana opened in 1927, a seven-story apartment building touched its north side and a four-story brownstone its east side, so those walls were faced in brick. Both neighbors were torn down for the International Affairs Building in 1970. The raw east wall left behind was not finished in brick until Casa Italiana's 1996 restoration.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1971

    Columbia founds the Herbert H. Lehman Suite, now housed in the International Affairs Building

    Columbia founded the Herbert H. Lehman Suite and Papers in 1971 to serve its scholars. At the dedication, Governor Lehman's widow, Edith Altschul Lehman, said she hoped it would become an important resource for young researchers. The suite is now in room 406 of the International Affairs Building at 420 West 118th Street.

    Source: portal.ehri-project.eu

  6. 1971

    The School of International Affairs moves into its own fifteen-story building

    After years in brownstones, the school took up residence in the new tower in 1971. It added a Master of Public Administration in 1977 and took the name School of International and Public Affairs in 1981. SIPA now runs seven centers, among them the Center on Global Energy Policy and the Institute of Global Politics.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1981

    Columbia renames its School of International Affairs the School of International and Public Affairs

    Columbia added a Master of Public Administration in 1977 to meet growing demand for public service professionals. In 1981 that degree took the name Graduate Program in Public Policy and Administration, while the School of International Affairs took the name School of International and Public Affairs, the name it keeps in the International Affairs Building.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2005

    March

    The Lehman Center for the Study of American History celebrates its opening

    In 2004 Columbia widened the mission of the Lehman Suite and gave it the name Herbert H. Lehman Center for the Study of American History, directed by the historian Kenneth T. Jackson. The center marked its opening in March 2005 with the start of a program series on new scholarship about the American past. The suite in the International Affairs Building has hosted its events and exhibitions.

    Source: portal.ehri-project.eu

  9. 2020

    Fall

    The Lehman Center relaunches as its suite in the International Affairs Building faces renovation

    In 2019 and 2020 Columbia planned to renovate the Lehman Suite, which sits in the International Affairs Building, and, with Kenneth Jackson retiring, history faculty and library staff reimagined the center. The Lehman Center for American History relaunched in fall 2020 with a new wave of programming on United States history, while the suite itself was under extensive renovation.

    Source: portal.ehri-project.eu

Further reading

Nearby

All 49 buildings with stories in Morningside Heights