QC Marks 70th Anniversary

On October 11, 1937, the front page of the New York Times reported that the city was paying record amounts of home relief to mitigate the effects of the still-raging Great Depression; 200,000 Japanese troops were inflicting a heavy toll on Chinese forces in China’s Southern Hopeh Province; the AFL was aggressively fighting the CIO to sign up new union members; and Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, campaigning to become district attorney, was touting his success dismantling the remnants of mobster Dutch Schultz’s gang.

Meanwhile, under partly cloudy skies and seasonable temperatures, 400 young men and women gathered in Flushing and tried to put the events of a troubled world out of their minds as they embarked on an ambitious new chapter in their lives as members of the freshman class of New York City’s newest college. Typical of those times, Queens College’s first day of classes had been delayed several weeks by a painters’ strike.

Of course, more than paint was required to renovate buildings constructed early in the century to house the New York Parental Home for Boys into an institution of higher learning. (A grand jury investigation directed by District Attorney Charles S. Colden into charges of brutality closed the Parental Home in 1935.) As work on the campus continued, some classes were held at nearby Newtown High School or in the auditorium in Jefferson Hall. There were few desks, so students often sat in ordinary chairs and wrote on lapboards while instructors used portable blackboards. There was no cafeteria and no regular bus line within the vicinity of the campus.

Today, Queens College is still growing, still renovating, and still experiencing transportation issues. (Ask any student who’s made the two-hour commute by subway and bus from Brooklyn.) But, more than 100,000 graduates later, it has much to be proud of as it makes preparations to celebrate its 70th anniversary.

The official kickoff for the anniversary year began at Commencement on May 31 according to Alumni Affairs Director Nancy Rudolph, who is in the early stages of developing ways to mark the occasion. An event is being planned for Thursday, October 11—the college’s first day of classes 70 years ago—at which graduates from that time will be invited back to visit the campus and meet current students.

“We’re going to do things that are simple but that draw attention to the occasion,” she says, explaining that this celebration will serve to prime the campus for a more significant celebration a few years hence: the 75th anniversary of Queens College.