Bronx Community College - Definition and Overview

The Bronx Community College of The City University of New York is a community college in the City University of New York system.

History

It was established in 1957 through the efforts of civic-minded groups who felt that there was a growing need for more higher education facilities in the Bronx. Classes began at Hunter College, and later at the former site of the Bronx High School of Science.

In 1973, the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York acquired the University Heights campus from New York University, who had sold the campus under threat of imminent bankruptcy. Beginning in the fall of that year, the BCC moved its operations to the spacious and modern 55-acre site overlooking the Harlem River.

Campus

The BCC campus originally housed NYU's undergraduate college and now-defunct engineering school, and consists of a mix of neo-Renaissance buildings designed by architect Stanford White and brutalist concrete buildings by Marcel Breuer. Most notably, the BCC campus is home to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, the first such hall of fame in the United States. This landmark, which was founded in 1900 by Henry Mitchell MacCracken, Chancellor of NYU from 1891 to 1910, was designed as part of the undergraduate college of that university. The Hall of Fame, which was also designed by Stanford White, was established to honor prominent Americans who have had a significant impact on the country's history and includes bronze busts of Alexander Graham Bell, Eli Whitney, and George Westinghouse.

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