New York University isn’t exactly popular among East and West Villagers—mainly due to its obnoxiously large dorms and obnoxiously loud students.
In fact, most residents probably wouldn’t mind if the school relocated to an outer borough.
That’s exactly what NYU did in 1894, when overcrowding at its Washington Square digs compelled the school to find a spacious campus.
Its new home was just over the Harlem River in the Bronx. The neighborhood, renamed University Heights, housed most academic programs and operations—including the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, pictured below—for decades.
So what brought the school back downtown? Financial problems. In 1973, NYU sold its Bronx campus to CUNY, which established Bronx Community College there.
And NYU embarked on a plan to establish itself as a world-class institution in the Village once again.
Tags: colleges in New York City, CUNY Bronx Community College, New York University, NYU, NYU Hall of Fame, NYU in Washington Square, University Heights Campus NYU
Ephemeral New York 
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[…] almost too good to be true…It’s from a New York Times article from January 1914, back when NYU was (mostly) in the Bronx. You can read a PDF of the article […]
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February 28, 2013 at 5:53 am |
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Imagine if NYU had stayed in The Bronx. The borough would be completely different, economically and racially.
January 30, 2014 at 7:43 am |
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