On the 31st of October 1754, King George II of Great Britain signed a royal charter establishing King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, creating the fifth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and the oldest in New York. The college's first president, Samuel Johnson, an Anglican priest, presided over classes that began in July 1754, but the institution's early years were defined by political volatility rather than academic expansion. When the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1776, instruction was suspended for eight years as the college building was requisitioned first by American forces and then by British troops to serve as a military hospital. The college's library was looted, and its sole building was occupied by the Continental Army, leaving the institution in a state of suspended animation until the British departure in 1783. The legislature passed an act on the 1st of May 1784 to resuscitate the college, renaming it Columbia College to honor Christopher Columbus and demonstrate support for the new Republic. A board of regents was created to oversee the transition, and in 1787, former students Alexander Hamilton and John Jay headed a revision committee that adopted a new charter, granting power to a separate board of 24 trustees. This political upheaval transformed the institution from a royal college into a symbol of American independence, setting the stage for its future evolution into a modern research university.
The Manhattanville Expansion And Campus Evolution
In 1896, university president Seth Low moved the campus from 49th Street to its current location in Morningside Heights, a decision that would define the university's physical and intellectual identity for the next century. The new campus, designed by the architects McKim, Mead & White, was conceived as a unified Beaux-Arts plan where all disciplines could be taught under one roof, replacing the decentralized faculties of the 19th century. The campus occupies more than six city blocks and includes Butler Library, completed in 1934, which is now the largest in the Columbia University Libraries system and one of the largest buildings on campus. The university owns over 7,800 apartments in Morningside Heights, housing faculty, graduate students, and staff, and maintains an extensive tunnel system over a century old, some of which remain accessible to the public. In April 2007, the university purchased more than two-thirds of a site for a new campus in Manhattanville, an industrial neighborhood to the north, which included the demolition of existing light industry and storage warehouses. The $7 billion expansion plan, approved by the State of New York's Empire State Development Corporation in 2009, created 1.5 million square feet of space for the Business School, School of International and Public Affairs, and the Jerome L. Greene Center for Mind, Brain, and Behavior. This expansion faced significant opposition from community activist groups in West Harlem, who fought the plan over property protection and residents' rights, but the university proceeded with the development, using eminent domain to declare the area blighted. The new campus, which opened major facilities between 2014 and 2021, includes the ZMBBI, Lenfest Center, and The Forum, marking a significant shift in the university's physical footprint and academic focus.