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Furnald Hall

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Coordinates: 40°48′27″N 73°57′50″W / 40.80750°N 73.96389°W / 40.80750; -73.96389
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Furnald Hall
Map
General information
Address2940 Broadway, New York City, New York
Named forRoyal Blacker Furnald
Opened1913
OwnerColumbia University
Technical details
Floor count10
Design and construction
Architect(s)McKim, Mead & White
Royal Blacker Furnald, Columbia College, Class of 1901 for whom the building is named.

Furnald Hall is a dormitory located on Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus and currently houses first-year students from Columbia College as well as the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science.[1] It is dedicated in memory of Royal Blacker Furnald, of the Columbia College Class of 1901.

History

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In 1907, New York real estate developer Francis Furnald (1847-1907) left funds in his will to erect a residence hall at Columbia University in memory of his son, Royal Blacker Furnald (1880-1899)[2] who would have graduated with the class of 1901.[3][4] However, the money was meant to be transferred to the university only after the death of Furnald's wife, Sarah E. Furnald (d. 1920).[5][6] To build the dormitory, Columbia offered Mrs. Furnald annual payments for life equivalent to the annual interest on the investment if she would advance the funds, totaling $300,000, to the university.[7][8] Mrs. Furnald accepted the offer and the building was constructed in 1912–13, designed by McKim, Mead & White.[9]

In 1924, Furnald Hall was the site of a cross-burning incident by men wearing Ku Klux Klan robes, targeting a black Columbia law student, Frederick W. Wells, who recently moved into a room in the building.[10][11][12] While the cross was burning on the lawns outside the building, white students ran through the corridors, hurling derogatory and threatening remarks at Wells. In the following days, Wells also received death threats from the KKK.[13] The incident received widespread national media attention from The New York Times to the Los Angeles Times, but according to Columbia researchers, was "effectively nonexistent" in the university's institutional records.[14] In 2022, the university administration erected a marker on the building as part of a campus-wide effort to acknowledge the school's legacy of slavery and racism and commemorate the struggles of its African American students.[15]

During World War II, the building was used as a dorm for naval reserve officers in the United States Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School.[16][17]

In the 1968 Columbia University protests, the building witnessed violent clashes between police and students protestors and policy brutality against student bystanders.[18][19][20]

In 1971, gay students at Columbia, led by Morty Monford, later head of the Gay Activists Alliance and son of PFLAG founder Jeanne Manford, took over an unused space in the dormitory basement and eventually obtained permission from school officials to use the space as a gay lounge, which has been operational until recently as the Stephen Donaldson Lounge.[21][22][23][24]

The basement of Furnald Hall was also the site of a nonprofit grocery store from 1976 to 1989, founded by students from Columbia and Barnard in response to rising food prices on campus.[25][26] In its final year of operation, on December 20, 1988, Columbia security guard Garry Germain was shot and killed while patrolling the area between the Furnald Grocery[27] and what is now Pulitzer Hall.[28] The grocery store was closed temporarily until March 1989 in the aftermath of the murder,[29] and closed permanently in December 1989.[30] As of 2023, the murder of Germain remains unsolved.[31]

Notable residents

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Furnald Hall was prominently featured in Herman Wouk's novel The Caine Mutiny, since the building serves as the residence of the protagonist, Willis Seward "Willie" Keith, who was attending naval midshipman's school at Columbia.[50][51]

References

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  1. ^ "Furnald Hall | Columbia Housing". www.housing.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  2. ^ "Columbia Daily Spectator 12 May 1899 — Columbia Spectator". spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  3. ^ "Furnald Hall". Columbia University Historical Justice Initiative. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  4. ^ "COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY BUILDING NAMES". Notable New Yorkers. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  5. ^ Humanities, National Endowment for the (1920-02-08). "New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, February 08, 1920, Image 17". p. 17. ISSN 1941-0646. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  6. ^ "Columbia Daily Spectator 3 April 1907 — Columbia Spectator". spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  7. ^ Dolkart, Andrew S. (2001-03-15). Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture and Development. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-07851-1.
  8. ^ "Plymouth Tribune 25 April 1907 — Hoosier State Chronicles: Indiana's Digital Historic Newspaper Program". newspapers.library.in.gov. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  9. ^ "Museum of the City of New York - Furnald Hall at Columbia University". collections.mcny.org. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  10. ^ "FIERY CROSS BRINGS COLUMBIA NEGRO AID; Furnald Hall Staudents Rally to Wells's Support After Emblem Burns on Campus". The New York Times. 1924-04-04. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  11. ^ "NEGRO AT COLUMBIA DEFIES HIS CRITICS; Law Student Living in Furnald Hall Says He Won't Be Bullied Into Moving". The New York Times. 1924-04-03. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  12. ^ "The 1924 Cross Burning at Columbia | Columbia University Libraries". columbiaandslavery.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  13. ^ "DEATH THREAT SENT TO COLUMBIA NEGRO; Another Letter Signed Ku Klux Klan Advises Wells to Leave Furnald Hall. BOMB SQUAD MEN ON GUARD Protest of Students' Committee Is Presented to University, but No Action Is Taken". The New York Times. 1924-04-05. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  14. ^ "The Nation Responds to the Cross Burning · The 1924 Cross Burning · Student Exhibits | Columbia University and Slavery". slaveryexhibits.ctl.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  15. ^ Moscufo, Michela (2022-04-19). "Columbia University to publicly mark its historic ties to slavery, racism". Reuters. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  16. ^ Goldstein, Richard (2010-04-13). Helluva Town: The Story of New York City During World War II. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4165-9302-7.
  17. ^ Pass in Review: The Story of the Training of 25,000 Young Officers of the Naval Reserve who Went Forth from the Midshipmen's School in the City of New York. United States Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School. 1945.
  18. ^ "Roll On, Columbia! - Issue 55, June 4-18, 1968 - Fifth Estate Magazine". Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  19. ^ "Columbia‐Riot Suits Of $3‐Million Each Being Heard Here". The New York Times. 1974-11-11. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  20. ^ Marwick, Arthur (2011-09-28). The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-4482-0542-4.
  21. ^ "COLUMBIA AGREES TO EQUIP 'GAY' AREA". The New York Times. 1971-12-10. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  22. ^ "Student Homophile League at Earl Hall, Columbia University – NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project". www.nyclgbtsites.org. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  23. ^ "Donaldson Queer Lounge Dedicated". www.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  24. ^ Stack, Liam (2017-06-19). "New York's L.G.B.T.Q. Story Began Well Before Stonewall". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  25. ^ "Columbia Students Will Operate A Nonprofit Grocery on Campus". The New York Times. 1976-02-01. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  26. ^ "Did You Know? Furnald Hall Housed a Student-Run Grocery Store". Columbia College Today. 2019-03-13. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  27. ^ "Columbia Daily Spectator 24 January 1989 — Columbia Spectator". spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  28. ^ "TimesMachine: Thursday December 22, 1988 - NYTimes.com". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  29. ^ "Columbia Daily Spectator 9 March 1989 — Columbia Spectator". spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  30. ^ "Columbia Daily Spectator 22 February 1991 — Columbia Spectator". spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  31. ^ Roussi, Antoaneta. "Murder in the Ivy League". www.narratively.com. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  32. ^ Smith, Dinitia (2000-07-04). "Poetic Love Affair With New York; For Garcia Lorca, the City Was a Spiritual Metaphor". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  33. ^ "CU summer housing: Lorca slept here – News from Columbia's Rare Book & Manuscript Library". blogs.cul.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  34. ^ "Take Five with Herman Wouk '34". Columbia College Today. 2017-09-01. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  35. ^ "Pianist Armen Donelian '72 Found Community in Furnald". Columbia College Today. 2022-09-23. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  36. ^ "Take Five with Brad Gooch '73". Columbia College Today. 2017-07-14. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  37. ^ "Columbia Shaped Every Aspect of This Professor's Life". Columbia College Today. 2021-08-19. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  38. ^ Markovits, Andrei S. (2021-08-10). The Passport as Home: Comfort in Rootlessness. Central European University Press. ISBN 978-963-386-422-7.
  39. ^ "Eric Garcetti '92, '93 SIPA Is Making Tinseltown Green | Columbia College Today". www.college.columbia.edu. Archived from the original on 2017-06-26. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  40. ^ MacLauchlin, Cory (2012-03-27). Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confederacy of Dunces. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-82040-3.
  41. ^ O'Neill, Mark (2022-01-01). China's Great Liberal of the 20th Century - Hu Shih: A Pioneer of Modern Chinese Language. 三聯書店(香港)有限公司,聯合電子出版有限公司代理. ISBN 978-962-04-4918-5.
  42. ^ Biddle, Arthur W. (2001-01-01). When Prophecy Still Had a Voice: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Robert Lax. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-2168-0.
  43. ^ Merton, Thomas (1974-08-13). A Thomas Merton Reader. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-385-03292-6.
  44. ^ Warner, Jayne L. (2017-11-13). Turkish Nomad: The Intellectual Journey of Talat S Halman. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-83860-981-8.
  45. ^ "Guide to the Lesley Frost Ballantine Papers, 1890-1980". Library. 2008-01-31. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  46. ^ Francis, Lesley Lee (2015-12-03). You Come Too: My Journey with Robert Frost. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-3746-5.
  47. ^ "Lesley Ballantine, 84; Wrote Children's Books". The New York Times. 1983-07-12. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  48. ^ Paul, Steve (2021-10-29). Literary Alchemist: The Writing Life of Evan S. Connell. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-7464-9.
  49. ^ Katz, Karl (2016-09-27). The Exhibitionist: Living Museums, Loving Museums. ABRAMS. ISBN 978-1-4683-1348-2.
  50. ^ Wouk, Herman (2013-01-15). The Caine Mutiny: A Novel of World War II. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-24856-3.
  51. ^ Vogue. Condé Nast Publications. 1953.

40°48′27″N 73°57′50″W / 40.80750°N 73.96389°W / 40.80750; -73.96389

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