New York University Archives

Wishing the NYU community a safe Spring Break snow day!

This snowy image is from a yearbook for 1945, when cars were allowed to drive through Washington Square Park. Neighborhood and preservation activists spent decades fighting to close the park to traffic, in opposition to Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, who wanted to extend 5th Avenue straight through the park. The park was closed to traffic in 1958.

Exhibition: Women in STEM at NYU

Please visit our new exhibition in the south side reading room on the 10th floor of Bobst Library starting next week!

Dr. May Edward Chinn - first black woman to graduate NYU’s medical school

May Edward Chinn was born in 1896 to a father who was born into slavery and a mother who was black and Native American. As a child, she was exposed to elements of upper class society such as language, theatre and music while her mother worked as a domestic for the Tiffany family. She became a talented piano player and intended to study music but was dissuaded because of her race. She nevertheless played piano around Harlem in the 1920s, for Paul Robeson in particular, and was associated with many prominent figures in the Harlem Renaissance. She formally pursued education instead and graduated from Columbia’s Teachers College in 1921. Encouraged by one of her professors there, she decided to pursue a career in science.

In 1926, Chinn became the first black woman to graduate from NYU’s medical school. Following her studies at NYU, she interned at Harlem Hospital, and was the first woman to ride with their paramedics on ambulance calls. No hospitals would offer her admitting privileges, however, so she started her own practice in Harlem. She had that practice for 50 years and worked in cancer research as well.

NYU Tandon School of Engineering, New York University School of Medicine, NYU Science, New York University, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, ITP - NYU NYU Alumni

How does this study space compare to Kimmel or Bobst?

These photos are of the Loeb Student Center soon after its opening in 1959. Loeb was demolished and replaced by Kimmel in the early 2000s.

NYU’s status as a global university may be relatively new, but the roots of it date back more than 100 years. In 1911, Chancellor Elmer Ellsworth Brown explained in his inaugural speech that “[n]o university can hold the unqualified regard and confidence of its students and its benefactors unless it make for itself a genuinely international character.”

In 1958, NYU launched its first formal global study program in Madrid, Spain. It followed with programs in Puerto Rico, Israel and of course Paris, Florence and Berlin, among other cities.

Today, NYU has 11 international academic centers in cities on six continents, plus degree-granting institutions in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.

This week NYU World Tour celebrates global influences on the University’s campuses. Look for events here https://www.nyu.edu/life/events-traditions/nyu-world-tour.html and check out our exhibition in the Bobst atrium for more on NYU’s global history.

The New York University Archives is pleased to announce the opening of its latest exhibition, A University in the City/A University of the City, prepared by guest curator John Berman and featuring materials from collections held at the New York University Archives. You can visit the exhibition in the Mamdouha S. Bobst Gallery, located on the first floor of Bobst Library. The exhibition explores nearly 200 years of University history and provides a window into what life at the University was like for faculty, students, and other members of the University community over time.

If you want to know more about any events or people featured in the exhibition, or if you have items or stories we should add to this exhibition, please feel free to reach out to us! We’ll be delving more into the stories behind some of the objects, photographs, and documents on display throughout the year on the Back Table blog (https://wp.nyu.edu/specialcollections/) and here on Facebook. We’ll also be periodically updating the contents of the exhibition, so check back to see what we’ve added!

(Photo: Orientation student leaders, 1986)

Can you fill in the blanks in this Welcome Week puzzle? All the answers can be found by browsing our past Facebook posts!

Blank 1: First letter of first name of 5-time Olympic bronze medalist, physician, and 1930 NYU alumnus
Blank 2: First letter of first name of speaker at Judson Memorial Church, April 8, 1941
Blank 3: First letter of ship name used for first-ever College Cruise around the World
Blank 4: First letter of School of Education summer camp established in 1928
Blank 5: Third letter of last name of civil rights lawyer, Manhattan borough president, and 1943 NYU alumna
Blank 6: First letter of first name of principal founder of University of City of New York, 1831
Blank 7: First letter of first name of first director of Institute of Afro-American Affairs, 1968
Blank 8: Sixth letter of last name of University Heights security patroller, aka “The Cop”

This map was featured in "Around New York," a handbook issued to students attending the School of Education's 1939 summer session. How many of these tourist spots have you visited, even 70-odd years later?

Happy Independence Day!

One of NYU’s founding fathers, Albert Gallatin, was also an important figure in the early American republic. A Swiss immigrant who came to this country in the 1780s, he was a political opponent of Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist Party, and became an important member of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison’s Democratic-Republican Party in the House of Representatives. Gallatin became the fourth Secretary of the Treasury in 1801. He held the office for nearly fourteen years under Presidents Jefferson and Madison, and remains the longest-serving Secretary of the Treasury to this day. He resigned his office to help negotiate the terms of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. Gallatin is honored for his contributions to the Department of the Treasury with a bronze statue located outside the northern entrance to the Treasury Building in Washington, D.C.

After the end of his political career, Gallatin moved to New York City. He joined a group of New Yorkers interested in founding a new university which would educate the sons of merchants and artisans in addition to members of established elite families. As Gallatin put it, the university’s purpose was to “Elevate the standard of learning...diffuse knowledge, and to render it more accessible to the community at large.” He was unanimously elected the first president of the University of the City of New York’s University Council in 1831. Today, he is best known as the namesake of NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study as well as the Albert student information system.

Despite today's cool temperature, it’s starting to feel like summer in the city! Between 1957 and 1985, NYU students, faculty, and staff could beat the heat in a swimming pool in the basement of Hayden Hall (soon to be renamed Lipton Hall), which was then a dormitory for NYU School of Law students.

A small admission fee to the pool facilities also included the use of a towel, locker, and men’s swimming trunks. (Women were asked to bring their own swimsuits and swim caps.) After nearly 30 years, during which time a larger and more modern swimming pool had opened in the Jerome S. Coles Sports Center, the Hayden Hall pool was finally closed when the building was converted to undergraduate housing. Today, the former pool area serves as a lounge for commuter students.

Do any of our NYU Alumni remember the old Hayden Hall swimming pool?

Congratulations to Peter Wosh on his retirement!

Peter has directed the program in Archives and Public History at New York University since 1994. His wisdom and guidance have shaped a generation of archivists. Peter has also been a mentor and friend to many University Archives staff members over the years, challenging us to tackle tough issues in archival theory and practice, while also reminding us not to take life too seriously. We will miss seeing him around campus, but we wish him all the best in his new adventures.

Thanks for everything, Peter. We love you!

--. --- / ...- .. --- .-.. . - ...

Today is Morse Code Day, celebrating the birthday of telegraph inventor and NYU professor Samuel F. B. Morse! Can anyone translate the message above?

Morse became one of the University’s first faculty members in 1832. Though he was hired as a professor of arts and design, he spent much of his time working on an invention that could transmit messages using electricity. By 1836, he had a prototype, but it could only send messages a few feet. Morse consulted his colleague, chemistry professor L. D. Gale, who was able to make suggestions that improved the range of the device to around 10 miles. Then, the next year, NYU student Alfred Vail joined the team.

Vail modified the design of the telegraph so that it could inscribe dots and dashes on a narrow strip of paper. Historical accounts are uncertain, but it is possible that he also developed the code which translates the dots and dashes into letters. (Should we celebrate Vail Code Day on September 25th--Alfred Vail’s birthday--instead?)

Morse, Gale, and Vail made one of their first public demonstrations of the telegraph in NYU’s original University Building on Washington Square on January 24, 1838. Admission was by invitation only. The message Morse transmitted said, “Attention, the Universe! By Kingdom’s Right Wheel!”

Or, in other words, .- - - . -. - .. --- -. / - .... . / ..- -. .. ...- . .-. ... . / -... -.-- / -.- .. -. --. -.. --- -- ... / .-. .. --. .... - / .-- .... . . .-..