City College – “Harvard-on-the-Hudson”
Do you see them looking at you? Laughing at you? Making faces? They are! They are the grotesques and gargoyles of the City College. In keeping with ages-old Gothic tradition, the stone-terracotta buildings are covered with over 1,000 of them! The creatures are observing you from anywhere you are on campus. Beware!
The City College was founded in 1847 and was the country’s first free public institution of higher education! In 1895, the City College built its present-day Gothic campus in western Harlem, designed by legendary architect George Browne Post.
Called the Free Academy of the City of New York, it was a combination prep school, high school / secondary school, and college. It was meant to provide access to free higher education to the immigrants and the poor based on academic merit alone! At a time when educational opportunities were offered mostly to the male offsprings of wealthy Protestant families, City College admitted students not dependent on their social status, religion, and nationality. The academic excellence of City College earned it the monikers of the “poor man’s Harvard,” “Harvard of the Proletariat,” and “Harvard-on-the-Hudson.”
Walk around the fantastic neo-Gothic campus of City College with the audio guide “The Heart of Harlem: A Walk through 400 Years of History,“ and spot all the smiley, angry, and scary faces.
Download at VoiceMap.me/Harlem or just scan the QR code.
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