In this postcard, stamped 1913, it looks like a cathedral. But it’s actually the flagship building at City College’s Hamilton Heights campus, built in 1906 at 138th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
It’s a lovely campus in a beautiful neighborhood—one of the Manhattan’s hidden gems.
I don’t think the two Gothic-inspired gates flanking the drive exist anymore. But the terra cotta-topped structure with the two towers remain.
Tags: City College Shephard Hall, Convent Avenue NYC', CUNY manhattan, Gothic buildings New York, Hamilton Heights NYC, Harlem buildings, historic Harlem, New York street, vintage New York postcards
Ephemeral New York 
April 26, 2012 at 12:50 pm |
The gates are still there, one on each ends of Convent Ave. Truly a hidden gem.
April 26, 2012 at 12:55 pm |
Here’s one: http://g.co/maps/wtypa The other, with the scene depicted in the postcard, is unavailable on google streetview
April 26, 2012 at 1:39 pm |
I do recall seeing something arching over the street at City College but I’m not sure it was joined to those gates. I work not far from there and will take a stroll over sometime to confirm. It really is a beautiful place.
April 26, 2012 at 1:54 pm |
The Gothic gates still grace Convent Avenue near Shepard Hall.
April 26, 2012 at 2:12 pm |
Thanks Jack, Beth, and Benjamin—they are lovely! The surrounding neighborhood is one of my dream places to live in New York City. I can’t get over the beauty of this area so few city residents ever see.
April 26, 2012 at 5:36 pm |
The stone used to face the buildings was from the IRT subway tunnel excavation.
April 30, 2012 at 12:59 pm |
If you walk down from the North Campus to Riverside Drive, there is a single building there in the same style with the same kind of stone. I’m a CCNY alum but I have no idea what that building is.
May 20, 2012 at 7:52 pm |
Another CCNY Alum here. I was going to post just to say, yes the gates are still there. The stone the buildings are constructed with is called Manhattan Schist, the bedrock of Manhattan which anchors the skyscrapers midtown & downtown.
December 7, 2014 at 3:41 pm |
On saturday, started following a thread of posts on a FB page, Long Island and NY Area Places That Are No More…. about the MISSING / razed gates. it’s so interesting. Am CCNY grad, 45 years ago. TY for the information. the architecture is amazing, the more so, when I’m a whole lot older – as it wasn’t something I really paid that much attention to, when I was 20. There are so many FB pages with old images of NYC, hard to keep them all straight. But it was an interesting discussion. Each gate had a name.