Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger recently announced that he will be stepping down as Columbia University’s President on June 30, 2023. While most of us took the time after his announcement to look back on the past two decades of Bollinger’s administration, there is one “member” of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library who […]
Tag: University Archives
A Dorm for Crew on “Cathedral Heights”
The first students to reside on the Columbia campus on Morningside Heights were members of the 1895 Varsity Crew Team. Just months after acquiring the land and two years before classes even started on the new site, the crew team was granted permission to use a house on the Bloomingdale Asylum grounds as training quarters. […]
Remembering the College Tavern
As Columbia marks 125 years in Morningside Heights, we look back to the early days in the neighborhood, before the subway reached this part of the island and when Broadway was known as “The Boulevard” (and was still unpaved). Back “when everything was new and bare, Mike’s tavern furnished a cozy retreat.” […]
The Low Library in Shanghai
Did you know that there was another Low Library in Shanghai? That this library was similarly made possible by a gift from Seth Low (and his brother)? And that it was also closely connected to Columbia? […]
A President’s Degree and a Long-Lost Letter
As Columbia gets ready to host Commencement in person once again (May 18 for the Class of 2022 and May 19 for the Classes of 2020 and 2021) and in honor of Presidents’ Day, we look back to Commencement 1861. During the Commencement exercises in June 1861, Columbia President Charles King announced that the College […]