The Free Academy at Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street in New York City in the 1800s.

Old photo of the main City College building, Shepard Hall, looking West from St. Nicholas Avenue to Shepard Hall's main entrance on St. Nicholas Terrace

City College was originally situated in downtown Manhattan, in the Free Academy Building, which was CCNY's home from 1849 to 1907. The building was designed by James Renwick, Jr. and was located at Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street. According to some sources, it was the first Gothic Revival college building on the East Coast.

CCNY then moved to its current location in the upper Manhattan village of Manhattanville in 1906, when the classical neo-Gothic campus was erected.

This new campus was designed by George Browne Post.

According to CCNY's published history, "The Landmark neo-Gothic buildings of the North Campus Quadrangle were designed by the noted architect George Browne Post. They are superb examples of English Perpendicular Gothic style and are among the first buildings, as an entire campus, to be built in the U.S. in this style. Groundbreaking for the Gothic Quadrangle buildings took place in 1903".

The original neo-Gothic buildings on the new upper Manhattan campus were:

• Shepard Hall, standing on its own, across the street from the campus quadrangle on Convent Avenue
• Baskerville Hall
• Compton Hall
• Harris Hall
• Wingate Hall

Shepard Hall was the largest building and the centerpiece of the campus, and modeled after a Gothic cathedral plan, and whose main entrance was designed to be on St. Nicholas Terrace.

It also contained a large cathedral or chapel assembly hall called "The Great Hall".

Harris Hall, named in the original architectural plans as "the Sub-Freshman Building", housed City College's preparatory high school from 1906 until it moved in 1930 downtown to the School of Business.

Wingate Hall, was named for George Wood Wingate (Class of 1858), an attorney and promoter of physical fitness. It served as the college's main gymnasium between 1907 and 1972.

Baskerville Hall, for many years housed the Chemistry Department, was also known as the Chemical Building, and had one of the largest original lecture halls on the campus, Doremus lecture hall.

Compton Hall was originally designed as and called The Mechanical Arts Building in the original plans.

Five of these new Gothic campus buildings opened in 1906. The sixth, Goethals Hall , finished in 1930, was named after George Goethals the famous civil engineer who was chief engineer of the Panama Canal and who had attended CCNY as an undergraduate student. Goethals Hall housed the School of Technology (engineering) adjoining The Mechanical Arts Building, Compton Hall.

A stone grotesque on a CCNY building from 1906, holding a model of Shepard Hall.

There are six hundred grotesques on the original Gothic buildings made to represent the practical and the fine arts.

The North Campus Quadrangle contains four great arches on the main avenues entering and exiting the campus:

• the Hudson Gate on Amsterdam Avenue
• the George Washington Gate at 138th Street and Convent Avenue
• the Alexander Hamilton Gate at the northern edge of Convent Avenue
• the Peter Stuyvesant Gate at St. Nicholas Terrace.

In the early 1900s, after the Gothic campus had been built, CCNY President John H. Finley had a dream of a stadium, later to be realized as Lewisohn Stadium, since he knew the need for adequate facilities for the college's athletic teams. New York City did not give money, but it donated two blocks south of the College, which was open park land. He also learned that businessman and philanthropist Adolph Lewisohn wanted to finance the project. They spoke about it for the first time in 1912. Lewisohn agreed to donate $75,000 for the Stadium. Finley commissioned the architect, Arnold W. Brunner, to do the project, which was built on Finley's memories of a small rock-hewn theatre in the Trastevere section of Rome, Italy.

Old photo of the former Adolph Lewisohn Stadium, now the site of the North Academic Center

Lewisohn stadium was built as a 6,000-seat stadium, with thousands more seats available on the infield during concerts, and was dedicated on May 29, 1915, two years after Dr. Finley had left his post at the College and Dr. Sidney Edward Mezes had become CCNY's fourth president. The stadium's dedication was enhanced by a performance of "The Trojan Women", produced by Granville Barker and Lillian McCarthy.

A separate library building was not in the original plan for the 1906 campus, so in 1937, a free-standing library was built. The Bowker/Alumni Library stood at the present site of the Steinman Engineering building until 1957.

The Hebrew Orphan Asylum was erected in 1884 on Amsterdam Avenue between 136th and 138th Street, and was designed by William H. Hume. It was already there when City College moved to upper Manhattan. When it closed in the 1940s, the building was used by City College to house members of the U.S. Armed Forces assigned to the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). From 1946 to 1955, it was used as a dormitory, library, and classroom space for the college. It was called "Army Hall" until it was demolished in 1955 and 1956.

In 1946, on the North Campus, CCNY purchased a former orphanage administered by the Episcopal Church and named it Klapper Hall, for Paul Klapper (Class of 1904) Professor and the Dean of School of Education and who was later the first president of Queens College/CUNY (1937-1952). Klapper Hall was red brick in Georgian style and it served until 1983 as home of the School of Education.

1950's aerial view of the old South Campus of City College, bought in 1953 from Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. The photo is taken from the south looking northeast.

In 1950-51, CCNY won both the NCAA and the NIT basketball championships. One of the few schools to ever accomplish this feat. Following this many players were arrested in the CCNY Point Shaving Scandal which brought down many schools from various institutions for taking money from gamblers.

In 1953, CCNY bought the campus of the Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart (which, on a 1913 map, was shown as The Convent of the Sacred Heart), which added a south section to the campus. This expanded the campus to include many of the buildings in the area between 140th Street to 130th Street, from St. Nicholas Terrace in the east to Amsterdam Avenue in the west.

Former buildings of the Manhattanville College campus to be used by CCNY were re-named for City College's purposes: Stieglitz Hall, Downer Hall, Wagner Hall, the prominent Finley Student Center which contained the very active Buttenweiser Lounge, Eisner Hall, Park Gym, and Mott Hall, and others.

Generally, the South Campus of CCNY, as a result of this expansion, contained the liberal arts classes and departments of the college. The North Campus, also as a result of this expansion, generally housed classes and departments for the sciences and engineering, as well as Klapper Hall (School of Education), and the Administration Building.

In 1957, as a result of this campus expansion, a new library building was erected in the middle of the campus, near 135th Street on the South Campus, and named Cohen Library, after Morris Raphael Cohen, an alumnus (Class of 1900) and celebrated professor of the college from 1912 to 1938. The library was moved some decades later to be inside the North Academic Center building on the North Campus.

Steinman Hall, which houses the School of Engineering, was erected in 1962 on the site of the Bowker Library and the Drill Hall to replace the facilities in Compton Hall and Goethals Hall, and was named for David Barnard Steinman (CCNY Class of 1906), a well known civil engineer and bridge designer.

Also, in 1963, the Administration Building was erected and put in use on the North Campus across from Wingate Hall. It houses the college administration offices, including the President's and Provost's, and the Registrar's Office. It was originally intended as a warehouse also, housing the huge number of records and transcripts of students since 1847 when the college opened. In early 2007, the Administration Building was formally named The Howard E. Wille Administration Building, in honor of Howard E. Wille, class of 1955, a distinguished alumnus and philanthropist.

In 1971, the Marshak Science Building was built and opened, the former place of the open space known as Jasper Oval and previously an open football field. The building was named after a past president of CCNY in the 1970s (1970-1979), Robert Marshak, who was a renowned physicist. The Marshak building houses all science and labs, and also houses and adjoins the Mahoney Gymnasium and athletic facilities including a swimming pool and tennis courts.

In the 1970s, the construction of the massive North Academic Center (NAC) was begun, in the place of Lewisohn Stadium and Klapper Hall (which housed the School of Education from 1946 to 1983). It was completed in 1984 and houses thousands of classrooms, cafeterias, the Cohen Library, student lounges and centers, and the like, and became the main building for holding classes on the North Campus for the liberal arts and some sciences. Designed by architect John Carl Warnecke, the building has received criticism for its lack of design, and lack of scale in comparison to the surrounding neighborhood.

At about this same time, many of the old buildings of the South Campus were demolished, some which had been there since the Academy of The Sacred Heart days. The buildings remaining after this on the South Campus at this time were Cohen Library (later moved into the North Academic Center), Park Gym (now a Structural Biology Research Center), Eisner Hall (built in 1941 by Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart as a library, later remodeled and housed CCNY's Art Department and named for the Chairman of the Board of Higher Education in the 1930s), the Schiff House (former President's residence, now a childcare center), Mott Hall (formerly the English Department, now a New York City Department of Education primary school).

Annotated 1950's aerial view of the main part of the old South Campus of City College, with many former CCNY buildings marked with their names. (Click on photo to enlarge)

Some of the buildings which were demolished at that time were Finley Hall (housed The Finley Student Center, student activities center, originally built in 1888-1890 as Manhattanville Academy's main building, and purchased in 1953 by City College), Wagner Hall (housed various Liberal Arts departments and classes, originally built as a dormitory for Manhattanville Academy, and was named in honor of Robert F. Wagner Sr., member of the Class of 1898, who represented New York State for 23 years in the United States Senate), Stieglitz Hall, and Downer Hall, amongst others.

New buildings were erected on the South Campus, including Aaron Davis Hall in 1981, and the Herman Goldman sports field in 1993. In August 2006, for the first time ever in its history, the college completed the construction of a 600-bed dormitory, called "The Towers", and opened it for use. There are plans to rename The Towers after a distinguished alumnus or donor, who has not yet been named.

Within the NAC, a student lounge space was created outside the campus bookstore, and murals celebrating the history of the campus were painted on the doors of the Undergraduate Student Government. Founded in 1869, it claims to be the oldest continuously operating student government organization in the country. Across Convent Avenue, the first floor of the Administration Building was given a postmodern renovation for use as the admissions and registrar office.

The former Cohen Library is to be used as the new home for the School of Architecture, with the renovation headed by architect Rafael Viñoly. Near the 133rd Street gate, a new science building is under construction in order to relieve pressure from Marshak Hall, which had a beam collapse in 2005. Part of this project is the elimination of the Herman Goldman sports field, a controversial move which will dramatically alter the South Campus.

The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission made the North Campus Quadrangle buildings and the College Gates official landmarks, both in 1981. The buildings in the Quadrangle were put on the State and National Register of Historic Places in 1984. In the summer of 2006, the historic gates on Convent Avenue were restored.

The campus is served by the 137th Street-City College and 145th Street subway stations. Both are connected to the campus by shuttle buses.