Columbia University and the City of New York: A Timeline

 

King's College and New York City, 1524 - 1776

1524 Spring -- The Florentine Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed into New York Harbor in the employ of France on La Dauphine; first European to report on the site; judged region "not without some properties of value"
1609 Henry Hudson explored New York Bay and surrounding waterways on the Half Moon; lays claim to region on behalf of Dutch West Indies Company
1624 The Dutch establish trading post of New Amsterdam on southern tip of Manhattan Island
1653 New Amsterdam incorporated by a charter of the Dutch West India Company
1664 English assert control over New Netherland in name of the Duke of York (later James II); settlement renamed Province of New York
1665 Now under English rule, what had been New Amsterdam receives a new charter as "the City of New York."
1693 New York's  provincial government under Governor Benjamin Fletcher passes Ministry Act of 1693 -- effectively establishes six Anglican churches in New York City, Westchester and on  Long Island
1697 Trinity Church founded by Anglicans of New York City; church provided a charter from King William and granted the use of 32 acres of Crown-owned land in lower Manhattan ["Queen's Farm"] for seven years
1705 Trinity Church ceded Queen's Farm outright by  New York  Governor Lord Cornbury for its uses, including the possibility of establishing a college on part of the site
1745 Leading NYC attorney  James Alexander  pledges £100 to establish a college in NY Province, following announcement of plans to open a College of New Jersey (later Princeton)
1746 New York Provincial Assembly authorized £2250 lottery "to advance learning"
1747 Debate about locale of new college; Newburgh, Rye and Hempstead all proposed as rural alternatives to NYC locale
1752 March -- Trinity Church  offered 5 acres of its Queens Farm property in New York City for the new college; offer effectively ends discussion of other sites
1753 March and April --William Livingston and  fellow Presbyterians William Smith , Jr. and John Morin Scott  responded to what they saw as a plot to erect a "Episcopal college" in New York City with a 6-part series of attacks in the Independent Reflector, a weekly journal under their joint editorship. They call for a non-sectarian college
1754 May 14 -- Trinity Church conditions its earlier offer of land by requiring that the college president must be an Anglican and that official religious services  use the Anglican liturgy
  Classes began for eight students in rectory of school attached to Trinity Church on Rector Street; President Samuel Johnson provides all the initial instruction
1754 October 31 ["Charter Day"]-- Governor's Council accepted proposed charter from Lt. Governor James de Lancey for "King's College in the Province of New York"; Assembly approval bypassed in knowledge that it likely not forthcoming; William Livingston lodges lengthy objection to proceedings; Assembly votes to withhold lottery funds from the College.
  November 2 -- Lieutenant Governor James de Lancey signed charter on behalf of King George II, lodging responsibility for the College in 43-member Board of Governors; 17 ex-officio and 24 private gentlemen; twenty-nine were Anglicans. One of the ex officio governors the Mayor of New York City.
1756 May 7 -- College Governors decide to proceed with constructing a building for the College on the site provided by Trinity Church at projected cost of £11,000
  August 23 -- Cornerstone of King's College building laid on  the northeast corner of Murray and Church Streets;
  December 16 -- NY Assembly reached compromise in splitting £3282 in impounded lottery funds between King's College and New York City  for a new municipal pest house
1760 June -- The College's third commencement held, the first in just completed  College Hall
1767 Drs. Samuel Bard and three other New York City physicians open medical college within King's College; the second medical school to open in the colonies and the first to begin instruction.
  College governors request of New York City rights to water lots along edge of Hudson River bordering on College; plan to lease them out for rental income
1770 College begins leasing water lots adjacent to the College
1776 April -- College closed on orders of Revolutionary Committee of Safety; building confiscated for use as hospital
  September -- Revolutionary forces abandon  New York City, leaving it in hands of the British Army; College barely escapes fire that consumes Trinity Church; building used throughout the war as a military hospital. Most of  King's College governors and faculty,  and more than half of all King's College 216 alumni,  actively side with the Crown in opposition to the Revolution
   
 

Early Columbia College and New York City, 1784 - 1857

1783 November 23 -- British evacuate New York City following signing of Peace of Paris; prominent among American negotiators was John Jay (KC 1764)
1784 March 24 -- "Petition of Governors of King's College" submitted by   4 ex- King's College governors and 9 state officials, whose positions would have made them Governors of King's College, to reopen the College; New York City Mayor  James Duane  as prime mover.
  May 1 -- New York Legislature passes "An act for granting certain privileges to the College heretofore called King's College, for altering the name and charter thereof, and erecting a University in this state"; College to be called "Columbia College in the State of New York" and to be governed by 32 Regents, appointed by governor and drawn statewide; charter made no mention of earlier Trinity Church stipulations about the president being Anglican/Episcopalian  and Anglican/Episcopalian prayers
  November 26 -- Regents' membership expanded to include 20 more NYC residents; Alexander Hamilton among the new Regents;   Legislature also provided College with £2552 for its use.
1787 January --Legislative committee chaired by James Duane recommended that Columbia College be governed by its own corporation, separate from State-wide Regents; plan pushed by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay

 April 13 -- NY Legislature approves  new  charter for "Columbia College in the City of New York," by which the College reverted to its earlier status as a privately governed college primarily serving New York City; state-appointed Regents replaced by self-perpetuating 24 Trustees with no ex officio public members; charter provided basic governance framework that has since prevailed. 

1790

 July -- The national capital moved from New York City to Philadelphia, where it was to remain until 1800, when a permanent site on the Potomac was ready for occupancy.
1793 State capital removed from New York City to Albany
1801 Dr. David Hosack, Columbia Professor of Botany and Materia Medica, purchased 20 acres of land 3 1/2 miles north of the settled part of Manhattan, for $4800, intending to develop it as a botanical garden. He named it the Elgin Botanical Garden.
1805 College's  20-year leases on property adjoining the College  up for renewal at five times their earlier rents; a welcome source of needed income
1807 College of Physicians & Surgeons opens in New York City, in direct competition with Columbia's medical school.
1810 July 30 -- Trustees publish a fundraising appeal "To the Citizens of New York" at instigation of Rufus King
1811 August 7 -- "The Riotous Commencement" -- 57th Commencement services in Trinity Church disrupted by riot that followed on the refusal of President Harris, Provost Mason and  the faculty to confer a degree on senior John B. Stevenson because he reinserted objectionable lines into his commencement speech; several spectators, including aspiring politician Gulian Verplank (CC 1801) urged the students on in their defiance of the faculty's authority. Four participants  were brought to trial before mayor of New York City De Witt Clinton (CC 1786), found guilty and fined.
1813 Columbia's medical school closed; remnant of the medical faculty merged with College of Physicians and Surgeons; Columbia to be without a medical affiliation until 1861, without its own medical school until 1891.
1814 April 13 -- New York State  passed "An Act for the Promotion of Literature and other Purposes" by which Columbia acquired the 20-acre botanical garden it acquired in 1810 from the botanist David Hosack; its value at the time about $10,000; came to Columbia in lieu of the $200,000 received by Union College, $40,000 by Hamilton College, and $30,000 by The College of Physicians and Surgeons; use of the land specifically limited to future college site.
1817 January    -- NY Governor Daniel Tompkins (CC 1795) proposes scheme where state would assist Columbia moving to Staten Island and merging with newly chartered Washington College
March 27 -- Trustees reject relocation proposal; borrow $20,000 to undertake building-expansion program to construct east and west wings to main building
1819 April 5 --  Governor DeWitt Clinton (CC 1786) and state legislature permit College to lease property ("Hosack's Garden" ) acquired in 1814 and drop requirement that it be a future college site; also make grant of $10,000 to College to compensate for land's poor returns to College. Trustees unhappy with this deal and over next three decades came close several times to selling the property.
1829 January -- Trustees authorize borrowing of $22,000 to build a grammar school across Murray Street from the College; eighteen-year old College junior John Ogilvie appointed Headmaster. Soon thereafter, Charles Anthon put in charge.
1830 January 16 -- Trustees issue new statutes in anticipation of the establishment of the "University of  the City of New York"  (later, NYU), which  aimed at attracting sons of the City's commercial middle class; Columbia curriculum revised to include Literary and Scientific (i.e., no classics) Course to appeal to same constituency.
January 30 --  Trustees offering City of New York places on Board in exchange for gift of the old alms house; also invite scholarship support and endowment of professorships by City's various religious and ethnic groups
1831 April  --University of the City of New York  receives state charter. Backers of new college included several disaffected Columbians.
1832 October -- "New University" (NYU) opens for instruction in Clinton Hall, opposite City Hall Park from Columbia College; immediately draws some Columbia students as transfers
1841 What becomes Fordham University opens as St. John's College, making it the third college in greater New York City and the first Catholic college in the state.
1847 Establishment of the tax-supported Free Academy of New York  [after 1866, the City College of New York] approved by NYC voters; to open in 1849 as city-funded and tuition-free; New York City now has four competing competing colleges for a annual college-going population of under 500 young men 
1852 Trustees begin leasing the six-city-block "Upper Estate" in 202 separate parcels for twenty-one years; immediately becomes a  major source of College income.
1856 October  -- Trustees buy the Deaf and Dumb Asylum property on the east side of Madison Avenue  between 49th and 50th Streets; a bargain at $63,000; seen as temporary site for the College
1857 January -- Trustees sell College site on Park Place for $600,000; retain rental properties around the original campus (hereinafter "The Lower Estate")
May -- Columbia College moved from original site on Park Place to grounds of the New York Institution of Deaf and Dumb on Madison and 49th St; College Hall promptly demolished; site later occupied by Internal Revenue Service Building; currently, an apartment building [50 Murray St.] 
 

Early Columbia University and New York City, 1858 - 1901

1858 May 17 -- Columbia Trustees approve creation of a law school
  November -- Columbia Law School opened in rented quarters at 37 Lafayette Place under the leadership of  Warden (Dean)  Theodore W. Dwight (to1891); the two-year program becomes an  immediate popular and financial success
1860 June 4 -- College of Physicians and Surgeons becomes loosely affiliated with Columbia as "The Medical School of Columbia College"; P&S retains its own trustees, finances and control over curriculum; school  located at 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue
1863 May -- Trustees approve plan to establish a School of Mines and Metallurgy; to be a three-year program open to  professionally-motivated students with or without prior undergraduate training 

1864 May 18 -- Trustees elect Frederick A. P. Barnard (Yale 1828) Columbia's tenth president; had previously been a professor of science at the University of Alabama and president of the University of Mississippi
  November 15 -- Instruction begins at School of Mines in factory building on northeast corner of 49th St. campus;  Charles F. Chandler appointed Professor and Dean of the School
1866 -- College's endowment of $2,250,000 makes Columbia the richest college in the country (Harvard a distant 2nd with $1,000,000 endowment); nearly all due to rising value of New York City commercial real estate.
1872 October 22 -- Trustees buy "Wheelock" property in Fort Washington (160th St.) as possible future site of College
1874 New Building for School of Mines on 50th Street (northeastern) side of Madison/ 49th Street campus opens (extensions added in 1880 and 1884; first of three new buildings designed by Architect Charles Coolidge Haight (1861), son of Trustee Benjamin I. Haight, minister at Trinity Church
1878 January -- Trustees decide against moving College to the Wheelock property in Fort. Washington
1880 January -- Hamilton Hall opened on Madison Side (western) of the 49th Street campus
1881 June 7 --  Trustee Samuel Ruggles, with backing from President Barnard and at the urging of  Professor John W. Burgess, persuades a reluctant Board to  create a separate Faculty of Political Science as distinct from that of the College; marks the institutionalization of graduate instruction in the arts and sciences at Columbia
  A program in architecture introduced in the School of Mines, with William Robert Ware hired away from MIT to become its driving force; Columbia's the 2nd architecture school in America.
  November 7 -- 31-Year-old Seth Low (CC 1870) elected Trustee; same week as he was elected reform Mayor of Brooklyn
  Library building construction underway (opened in 1883); located mid-block on north side of 49th Street between Madison and Fourth/Park; third building of $1,000,000 building campaign paid for from University surplus. Law School pressured to move its downtown operations to this on-campus building.
1883 Law School moves uptown to 49th Street campus from its second residence on Lafayette Square (8 Great Jones St.)
  E.L. Godkin, editor of the Nation, in response to a complaint from Columbia Trustee Chairman Hamilton Fish that New Yorkers were insufficiently supportive of Columbia College, chastised Columbia for its "lack of contact with the life of the city."
1888 Teachers College founded in NYC to provide instruction in educational administration; affiliates with Columbia in1893
  May 7 -- Board accepts resignation of President Barnard; had served as president for 25 years, the longest tenure to that time. Trustees approves report favoring the creation of a women's "Annex"
1889 April 1 -- Columbia trustees approve creation of Barnard College as a separate women's college; to use faculty "rented" from Columbia
  October -- Barnard College opened for classes in a rented brownstone at 343 Madison Avenue
1890 February 3 -- Seth Low inaugurated as Columbia's 11th president (to 1901)

1891 May -- Trustees formed a sites committee to look into alternative sites for the University; included President Low, George Rives, Cornelius Vanderbilt, William C. Schermerhorn and Rev. Morgan Dix
  December -- Trustees alerted by Board Clerk John B. Pine that New York Hospital might sell property on Upper West Side that had been the grounds of the since relocated Bloomingdale Asylum at 120th and the Boulevard [Broadway].
  College of Physicians and Surgeons fully merged into Columbia University; Columbia Trustees assume all governance powers and financial responsibilities; had recently relocated to 59th Street and Tenth Avenue
1892 Bloomingdale site, from 120th to 116th Streets,  acquired by Trustees, with President Low putting up security for half the $2,000,000 cost
1893 November -- Trustees select the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White to develop Morningside site; firm's work prominently displayed at Chicago's 1893  World Fair 
1895 May 6 -- President Low announced to fellow Trustees his gift of $1,000,000 to construct library in honor of his father, Abiel Abbot Low; Trustee  William C. Schermerhorn  followed Low with pledge of $300,000 to construct a building for the natural sciences
1896 Spring -- $450,000 from the Frederick Christian Havemeyer family makes possible the getting underway of Havemeyer Hall (for chemistry), the westward pendant of  Schermerhorn; bequest from estate of Daniel Burton Fayerweather permits land breaking for Fayerweather Hall (for physics) to the south of Schermerhorn.  The Engineering building (now Mathematics Hall ) undertaken without promised funding. 
  May 2 -- President Low leads dedication of the Morningside campus; speaks of University's responsibilities to the City of New York; Trustees adopt institutional designation of "Columbia University in the City of New York";  undergraduate school hereinafter "Columbia College"
1897 October 4 -- New campus opened on Upper West Side; only Low Library finished but five buildings well along to completion
  November 2 -- Seth Low narrowly beaten as independent-reform candidate for Mayor of the about-to-be-consolidated City of New York; opposed by both Tammany Hall and the Republican machine
1898 January 1 -- Surrounding four boroughs join Manhattan as the consolidated City of New York; President Low and Dean Nicholas Murray Butler deeply involved in the charter revisions effecting the consolidation of Greater New York
1901 October -- Seth Low resigned as president upon accepting nomination as Republican-Reform candidate for Mayor of New York City
  November 6 -- Seth Low elected Mayor of New York City at head of a Republican-Reform   ticket
 

Columbia and the City of New York in the Butler Era, 1902 -1945

   
1902 January 6 -- Trustees unanimously elect 39-year-old Nicholas Murray Butler as Columbia's 12th president. Butler had been active in the move to consolidate the New York City school system.
  February -- Nicholas Murray Butler  elected 12th President of Columbia University; the third youngest incumbent at 40;
  April  12 -- Inauguration of Nicholas Murray Butler attended by his then friend and political confidante,  President Theodore Roosevelt
1903 October 1 -- Trustees purchased land between Broadway and Amsterdam and 116th and 114th Streets ("South Field") for $2,000,000. Would become site of College buildings and School of Journalism; still later, Butler Library
 

Ground broken for two undergraduate dormitories, Hartley and Livingston Halls, on east side of newly acquired South Field

  Mining magnate Adolph Lewisohn offered $250,000 for a School of Mines Building (now Lewisohn) on condition that University use his architect, Arnold W. Brummer.
  College of Pharmacy affiliated with Columbia; retain own trustees as per Teachers College and Barnard arrangements
1905 September 27  -- The cornerstone of Hamilton Hall, future home of Columbia College, was laid. Costs covered by $500,000 anonymous gift (financier John Stewart  Kennedy)
  December --  Trustees discontinue student-run intercollegiate football, following several financial and eligibility scandals. Discontinuance until 1915.
1910 University buys land east of Amsterdam Avenue between 116th and 117th Street ("East Campus"), with much of the funding provided by William Vanderbilt; land considered likely future location for the Medical  School (until it moved from 59th Street to 168th Street in 1925).
  December 28 -- University signs agreement with Presbyterian Hospital to plan new teaching hospital to be staffed by P & S physicians; plan in accord with recommendations of the Flexner Report (1908) and underwritten with $1,300.000 from Edward L. Harkness 
1912 Trustees approve creation of a School of Journalism and appoint School's first two professors, using supplemented funds ($2,000,000) provided by Joseph Pulitzer estate; school initially open to applicants without college experience, but not to women.
  Corporate name  changed by order of the New York Supreme Court to "The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York"
1915 June 8 -- Plan announced to build a medical campus at 168th Street; to be site of new Presbyterian Hospital and P & S.
1916 School of Business established; to provide two years of collegiate-level instruction
1921 April 3 -- Columbia Registrar reports that only 40% of students from NYC; College making concerted effort to limit percentage of graduates of New York City public schools, of whom a majority are Jews. 
  May 21 -- University discusses plans for an athletic stadium to be built at 218th Street
1922 June 4 -- George F. Baker gives $700,000 to buy land above Dyckman Avenue on northern tip of Manhattan for athletic fields and football stadium. Columbia now playing a national schedule in football.
1924 January 16 -- Columbia College Dean Hawkes acknowledges policy of limiting College enrollments based on social characteristics has been in effect for some time
  April 3 -- The presence of a Negro student, F.W. Wells, in Furnald Hall, prompts student protest; Ku Klux Klan involvement suspected
1925 January 31 -- Ground broken uptown for Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center at 168th St. and Fort Washington Ave. Principal funding from Edward S. Harkness
  Baker Field Stadium completed on upper tip of Manhattan on land given by George F. Baker in 1922.
1928 Committee advising President Nicholas Murray Butler on fundraising proposed a tax on all wills drawn in New York City, the proceeds to go to Columbia University.
1929 September -- Columbia Trustees sign 30-year lease of  17-acre “Upper Estate” [47th to 51st St.} to Rockefeller family for construction of Rockefeller Center;  annual rent to Columbia to be $3 Million, about 40% of Columbia's operating income.
   
1931 Construction underway for new Library Building on South Campus, with backside on 114th Street. Partially funded by a $3,000,000 gift from Edward S. Harkness. Was to be the last large building project undertaken by Columbia until after World War Two. Library renamed Butler Library in 1945.
1933 July -- Lease of land beneath Rockefeller Center renegotiated and  extended to 1962
1940 Secret research supported by US military underway at Columbia; beginnings of “Manhattan Project,” which led to the successful construction of a nuclear bomb
1942 June 11 -- NMB gets honorary degree from Fordham University
1944 February 8 -- Publisher of the New York Times, Arthur Hays Sulzberger (CC 1913), elected a Life Trustee; the 2nd Jew since 18th C. to be named to the Columbia Board and first since Benjamin Cardozo's resignation in 1932. 
1945 February – NMB urges Fiorello La Guardia's reelection as Mayor of NYC
 

April 23 – NMB announces plans  to resign the presidency of Columbia University in October; held office for 44 years

 

Columbia and the City of New York in the "American Century," 1946 - 1964

1947 May 20 – Morningside Heights, Inc.,  a community organization organized at the urging of David Rockefeller and various no-profit institutions inhabiting Morningside Heights,  created. Columbia Treasurer the organization’s treasurer
  June 21 – Eisenhower accepted the offer to become Columbia’s president, after receiving assurances from Tutstees Watson and Parkinson that he would have no major responsibilities for fundraising and “a minimum of concern with details.” His tenure to begin upon his release from the Army.  
  October -- Lawrence M. Orton, a member of Mayor William O’Dwyer’s  City Planning Commission,  appointed Executive Director of Morningside Heights, Inc.
1948 May – Morningside Heights, Inc. increased Board membership to 24; includes representatives of most  neighborhood institutions. David Rockefeller, Chairman. Barnard’s President Millicent McIntosh its first vice president.
1949 October – Morningside Heights, Inc. formed Remedco, a corporation to act jointly for the organization in real estate matters; purchased its first mortgage in 1950.
1950 Fall – proposal for Columbia to construct bomb shelters made by Engineering Professor Joseph Zanetti, Chair of CU Civil Defense Council
  December – Eisenhower named Commander of NATO; takes leave from Columbia; Provost Kirk unofficial  acting president
1951 February – Morningside Heights, Inc. working with Robert Moses, chairman of the Mayor’s Committee on Slum Clearance,
                  for redevelopment of Morningside and Manhattanville.
  October – First reports of neighborhood opposition to Morningside-Manhattanville redevelopment plans.
  November  13 –  Morningside heights, Inc-sponsored Morningside Gardens and City-financed General Grant Houses to be built north of Teachers College
1952 April – Strike of John Jay dining hall employees led by TWU leader Mike Quill; Acting President Kirk refuses to
            recognize union effort to organize.
  November -- Lease on Rockefeller Center land renewed for 21 years with only modest periodic escalation provisions.
  November  15 – Following substantial victory in the presidential election, Eisenhower submitted his resignation as president of Columbia, effective January 19, 1953.
1953 January  5  -- Grayson Kirk named 14th president of Columbia University.
  November – Morningside Heights, Inc. hires a Director of  Crime Prevention Program,, Lewis Yablonsky; to work with the 24th Precinct, NYPD
  116th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam, closed to vehicular traffic in anticipation of  the Bicentennial.
1955 June --  A summer of threatening actions by teenage gangs on Morningside Heights
1957

May – Lawrence Orton resigned as Executive Director of Morningside Heights, Inc.

  September – Rockefeller Brothers Funds underwrites comprehensive study of the Morningside-Manhattanville area (106th to 135th Streets)
  The Morningside Heights, Inc. sponsored Morningside Gardens and NYC-sponsored General Grant Houses, between 122nd and 125th Streets, and between Broadway and Amsterdam, open for occupancy.
  Stanley Salmen hired, at Jacques Barzun’s initiation, to oversee University planning and community relations.
  December – President Kirk replacing David Rockefeller as Chair of  Morningside Heights, Inc.; marks beginning of Rockefeller’s disengagement?
1958 University and NYC officials (Robert Moses[CU PhD 1919]) begin discussions on a CU gym in Morningside Park
  October -- Morningside Heights, Inc.  released its commissioned Skidmore, Owings & Merrill present redevelopment plan for Morningside.
  Jacques Barzun, heretofore Dean of Graduate Faculties, appointed Dean of Faculties and Provost
1959 December – Columbia and NYC agree on gym construction in Morningside Park; still required state approval
1960 NY legislature approves plan for Columbia to build gym in Morningside Park; plan calls for sharing some of the facility with neighborhood groups
1961 February -- Upper West Side Councilman Franz Leichter leading opposition to Columbia evictions efforts
  April – Some 600 persons, including faculty and students, protest the mandating by New York State of air raid drills on campus; first act of civil disobedience on the Columbia campus since WW II
  August -- City and CU agree on construction of gym in Morningside Park, following uneventful public hearings; expected cost of $10,000,000 to be raised in a fund drive, chaired by Trustee Harold McGuire
  Fall -- Morningside Renewal Council formed; generally critical of CU expansion in neighborhood
1962 Plans quietly underway to move both the School of Social Work and the School of Pharmacy to Morningside Heights;
University acquisition of neighborhood properties accelerating.
1963 Spring – NYC Mayor Wagner indicates  City will no longer cooperate with Columbia and Morningside Heights, Inc.,
              in condemning neighborhood buildings; Columbia looks to Albany for condemnation assistance
  December – Atomic Energy Commission approves on-campus TRIGA reactor for Engineering School
1964 June 23 -- Columbia buys apartment building at 618 W. 114th Street, intending site for School of Social Work; Morningside Heights, Inc. bought “Bryn Mawr,” 420 W. 121st Street; cited as a “narcotics den” by the press.
  July - Harlem experiences rioting and store-front destruction; one of many urban disruptions that summer
  Fall – Effort by CORE to unionize cafeteria workers; University agrees with other NYC universities to oppose unionization of dining halls to protect student job opportunities
   
 

 Columbia and the City of New York in a Time of Crisis, 1965 - 1969

1965 May -- Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps awards ceremony is disrupted by anti-war protesters. New York City Police called onto Morningside campus for the first time.
  September -- Some Harlem residents and Morningside Community activists publicly declare their opposition to the construction of Morningside gym for the first time.
  November -- John Lindsay is elected Mayor of New York; his campaign had criticized park incursions by private organizations
  December 13 -- President Kirk met with Manhattan Borough President Constance Baker Motley; city official seeking to limit Columbia expansion on Morningside Heights
1966 January -- New NYC Parks Commissioner Thomas P. F. Hoving declares his opposition to Columbia gym in Morningside Park.
  January 11 -- President Kirk and Vice President Lawrence Chamberlain meet again with Borough President Constance Baker Motley; hostile meeting
  January 15 -- Trustee Harold McGuire met with Parks Commissioner Thomas P. F. Hoving over gym; Hoving remains opposed to its being built in Morningside Park
  February -- Columbia receives $10,000,000 grant from Ford Foundation to study urban problems.
  February -- Administration confirms plan for gym in Morningside Park for which alumni pledges for projected $13,000,000 facility had reached $5,000,000.
  March -- Columbia University Student Council opposes construction of gym. Dormitory Council and Columbia Spectator endorse it.
  April --Associate  Professor of Sociology  Immanuel Wallerstein forms Faculty Civil Rights Group to focus on local Harlem community.
  May -- Harlem state legislators Percy Sutton and Basil Patterson vote against Columbia gym project; other Columbia allies in Albany maintain state support for project.
1967 October 25 -- 400 Columbia students among protesters of Secretary of State Dean Rusk’s appearance at the Hilton Hotel; SDSers Ted Gold (CC ’68) and Mark Rudd (CC ’69) among those arrested
  December -- Black activist H. Rap Brown denounces gym construction in Morningside and urges Harlemites to "burn it down."
  December 18 -- Columbia Spectator endorsed proceeding with the gym in Morningside Park.
  December 21 -- Columbia Citizenship Council (CCC) called for reconsideration of the gym in Morningside Park.
1968 February 18 - Groundbreaking for Morningside Park Gym
  February 20 - Demonstrations by non-SDS student groups on gym site against construction
  March 4 -- Columbia students and community people disrupt Congressman Joh Fitz Ryan conference to protest gym construction in Morningside Park
  March 6 -- Columbia Spectator  again endorsed going ahead with the gym
  April 4 -- Martin Luther King assassinated in Memphis; extensive urban rioting in its wake; New York City remains comparatively calm, thanks to efforts of Harlem political and religious leaders and those of Mayor Lindsay.
  April 23 -- Protesters leave Low steps and proceed to gym site in Morningside Park; one protester arrested by police in scuffle; other protesters, at Rudd's urging, return to Sun Dial
  April 24 -- Three representatives of the Mayor's office (Gottherer, Davidson,      )on campus, trying to advise restraint on all sides and to avoid the involvement of the neighborhood in the campus situation
  April 26 -- 2:00 AM – President Kirk calls off  police action at the urging of Provost Truman, who said he did so at faculty urging and in interest of allowing faculty mediation a chance to resolve the crisis
  Noontime -- Black high school students on campus; seek admission into Hamilton
  April 29 -- Afternoon -- Some members of AHFGroup seeking outside arbitration from Mayor John Lindsay or Governor Nelson Rockefeller
  April 30 -- 2:00 AM – Police, coming into building through tunnels, peacefully remove black students from Hamilton Hall.
  2:15 AM -- Police removal of students from Low Library nearly without incident, also coming in through tunnels
  2:15 AM -- Police removal of students from Low Library nearly without incident, also coming in through tunnels
  2:30 AM -- Avery Hall cleared of students by police with modest resistance and minor injuries
  2:45 AM -- Fayerweather Hall cleared of students by police, despite some scattered resistance
  3:00 AM -- Mathematics Hall cleared of students, with most resistance and some minor injuries
  3:15 AM -- Police on Low Plaza charge spectators gathered in South Field; resultant stampede produces the greatest violence of the operation.
In all, 712 occupiers arrested; 148 reported injuries
  May 17 -- Mark Rudd-led community activists seize CU apartment building on 114th St; police move in and make arrests
  May 21 -- 10:00 PM -- 200 students reoccupy Hamilton to protest disciplining of 4 SDS students;
  May 22 -- Hamilton Hall emptied by police, campus cleared; with some roughing up of spectators; fires in two buildings reported; 138 students arrested, including Rudd
  August 23 -- President Kirk announced his retirement; Dean of School of International Affairs Andrew W. Cordier named acting president
  September 5 -- Acting President Cordier asks police to drop trespass charges against 400 arrested students; charges stand against 154 others, including Rudd
1969 March 2 -- Trustees agree to abandon project to build gym in Morningside Park
  April 23 -- SDS seize Hamilton and Mathematics in support of black student demands; Cordier directs their prompt removal by the New York City Police.
  August 21 -- Andrew Cordier named 15th president of Columbia University; to serve for one year until successor on campus

 Columbia University and the City of New York, Recent History, 1970 - 2004

1970 February 3 -- University of California, San Diego, Chancellor (and ex-CU faculty member) William McGill elected 16th president of Columbia University; to begin in September
March 26 -- New York City  Civilian Review Board finds New York Police Department  "excessive force" in the  April 30, 1968 evacuation of Columbia buildings
1972 January 18 -- Preliminary negotiations indicate annual rent for Rockefeller center land may increase from $3.9 million to $12 to $15 million under new lease
April 26 -- NYPD called to campus to deal with anti-war protesters blocking access to buildings; disruptions occur until May 2nd
1973 June 5 -- Columbia's 119th Commencement; first in 5 years not disrupted by student protests
October 26 -- University completes renegotiations with Rockefeller Center for 15-year lease renewal; annual rent to rise from $9 million to $13 million during term; additional $4 million to endowmentNovember 9University projecting a balanced budget for 1974-75 for first time in 8 years; accumulated debt since 1967: $71,000,000
1974 Columbia University Club, at 43rd Street, dissolved; building sold
1975 May 12 -- 222nd Commencement; security tight following cuts in Community Educational Exchange program that benefitted the neighborhood; 6,700 graduates.
1980 January 7 -- Trustees name Michael I. Sovern 17th President of Columbia University; to take office in July
1983 February -- Columbia purchases Audubon Ballroom adjacent to the Medical Center; site of 1965 assassination of Malcolm X; begins a decade-long process of securing community support for a biomedical research center on site
1985 February 6Columbia to sell 11.7 acres under Rockefeller Center for $400 million.
1986 April 2 -- Students erected shanties on Low Plaza to protest pace of divestment and other issues; Administration OKed remaining up until April 7th; dismantled by protesters on April 4th "because of lack of interest and support by the University community
1987
March 22 -- A campus brawl between black and white male undergraduates outside Ferris Booth Hall; Black students plan protest demonstration for April 4th; rain keeps numbers of protesters below 100
April 20 -- Columbia efforts to evict a tenant from University-owned apartment building revives neighborhood antagonisms

April 21 -- 45 students chained themselves to Hamilton hall entrance to protest March 22nd racial incident; 40 arrests made

1989 November-- David Dinkins elected Mayor of New York City; first Black to hold that office
1990 May 10 -- Controversy over plan by University to raze Audubon Ballroom for medical school labs; Theatre the site of Malcolm X's assassination; in midst of community review process
August 22 -- All needed approvals secured for beginning construction on Audubon Ballroom site; substantial portion of site retained as Memorial to Malcolm X.
1992 June 7 -- President Sovern announces intention to leave presidency in June 1993. 
December 14 -- Student blockade of Hamilton Hall to protest Audubon Project; incident concluded after six hours of negotiations between the students and the Rev. Calvin Butts, minister of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church.. Three students suspended; 45 others disciplined
1993 February 1 -- Rice President George Rupp named 18th President of Columbia University
March 6 -- Provost Cole calls for construction of a "laboratory school" in Columbia neighborhood as aid in faculty recruitment/retention
June -- Columbia given the General Electric Building on Lexington/51st Street; valued at $40 Million; largest corporate gift to CU
October 4 -- George Rupp installed as Columbia's 18th president
November 22 -- Former NYC Mayor David Dinkins appointed to a 5-year professorship at SIPA
1994 October 1 -- Congressman Charles Rangel discusses Harlem Empowerment Zone with CU Trustees
1996 April -- Students protest absence of an ethnic studies department; 4 engaged in a 4-day hunger strike; 23 arrests following an all-night occupation of Low Library and separate blockade of Hamilton Hall. President Rupp stated that "students do not design our curriculum
December 4 -- Merger of Columbia-Presbyterian and New York-Cornell Medical Centers; Columbia and Cornell Medical Schools to remain separate 
A Columbia-commissioned report has the University as one of the City's three largest employers and the largest recipient of of federal research funding.
2001 March 3 -- President Rupp indicates his plans to step down in Summer 2002; presidential search committee to be formed under the chairmanship of Trustee Emeritus Henry King
September 11 -- The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center leave  2800  New Yorkers dead, among them 41 Columbians.
October 1 -- Columbia Trustees announce election of University of Michigan President Lee C. Bollinger (CU Law 1967) as Columbia's 19th president; To take office in July, 2002 
2002 July 1 -- Lee Bollinger begins his administration.
October 2-- Bollinger formally installed as Columbia's 19th president; declares Columbia the quintessential urban university, but also the one "most constrained for space."
Columbia announces plans to expand campus into Manhattanville, eventually to include properties between 125th and 133rd Streets, Broadway and 12th Avenue.
2003 The School at Columbia opens on 110th Street, serving 200 Columbia and community children, grades K to 4; Columbia acquires other residential property on Broadway south of 110th Street.

Prepared by Robert A.  McCaughey and Kenneth T. Jackson
Lasted corrected: March 7, 2004

Principal Sources:
Kenneth T. Jackson, ed., The Encyclopedia of the City of New York (Yale University Press, 1995)
Robert A. McCaughey, Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University in the City of New York (Columbia University Press, 20030

For comments, contact ram31@columbia.edu