Our Archives Week Open House this year (read more about over here!) included a display of book stamps that help tell the history of City Tech Library. While you can read more about our library’s history on our website, we’re sharing some of our display here in digital form.
This project grew out of our interest in collecting the various book stamps used by our library and by the institutions and libraries that have merged into what is now NYC College of Technology (known colloquially as City Tech). While we weren’t able to locate stamps for some of the earliest versions of City Tech Library, we found more than we expected: many library addresses we didn’t know even about and library branches we hadn’t heard of.
Tracing the history of our library has helped us think about the various ways libraries have served students over time, and we get a glimpse of past iterations of library services through the illustrations also on display in this room. These illustrations are from City Tech Library’s archive; we are excited to keep exploring and learn more about what they were initially used for.
As part of the trade schools movement, the New York Trade School (founded as The Technical Schools of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and later known as Voorhees Technical Institute) was part of a larger movement by union leaders and philanthropists to educate workers and provide educational opportunities to immigrants. Voorhees Technical Institute was located on West 41st Street in Manhattan, in a building that still exists near the Port Authority Bus Terminal. While our library no longer has books from its earliest iterations as the New York Trade School, several books from various branches of the Voorhees Technical Institute were incorporated into our collections.
The New York State Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences was founded in 1946 under legislation that set aside funds to support returning GIs following World War II; classes were initially held in the old Public School 15 building in downtown Brooklyn. In the 1950s, classes were also held at the Hotel St. George at 111 Hicks St, Brooklyn. The library was, for at least some of this time, located in a building at 300 Pearl Street in downtown Brooklyn.
New York City Community College, also known as the Community College of Applied Arts and Sciences, grew from the small set of technical programs offered when it was founded as The New York State Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences to boast more than 10,000 graduates by 1963. And while it was part of the State University of New York system in the early 1960s, known for a time as SUNY Tech, it became part of the CUNY system mid-decade. The library had several locations during the lifespan of New York City Community College: in its previous location at 300 Pearl Street; at 12 Franklin Street; on Livingston Street; and at the current address, 300 Jay Street.
Following New York City’s funding crisis of the 1970s and cuts broadly to community colleges across the city, the school’s name was changed to New York City Technical College in 1980 and its charter was amended to designate it an “urban technical institute,” with permission to grant 4-year degrees as well as associates degrees.
The name of City Tech was formally changed to New York City College of Technology in July 2002, to emphasize its high-tech workforce development focus and to distinguish it from other technical schools.
This project was compiled by Prof. Jen Hoyer and Prof. Kel Karpinski