Furnald Hall Explained

Furnald Hall
Address:2940 Broadway, New York City, New York
Opened Date:1913
Architect:McKim, Mead & White
Owner:Columbia University
Floor Count:10
Namesake:Royal Blacker Furnald

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

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

In popular culture

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

  1. Web site: Furnald Hall Columbia Housing . 2023-04-22 . www.housing.columbia.edu.
  2. Web site: Columbia Daily Spectator 12 May 1899 — Columbia Spectator . 2023-12-06 . spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu.
  3. Web site: Furnald Hall . 2023-04-22 . Columbia University Historical Justice Initiative . en.
  4. Web site: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY BUILDING NAMES . 2023-12-04 . Notable New Yorkers . en.
  5. News: Humanities . National Endowment for the . 1920-02-08 . New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, February 08, 1920, Image 17 ]. 17 . 2023-12-06 . 1941-0646.
  6. Web site: Columbia Daily Spectator 3 April 1907 — Columbia Spectator . 2023-12-06 . spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu.
  7. Book: Dolkart, Andrew S. . Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture and Development . 2001-03-15 . Columbia University Press . 978-0-231-07851-1 . en.
  8. Web site: Plymouth Tribune 25 April 1907 — Hoosier State Chronicles: Indiana's Digital Historic Newspaper Program . 2023-04-22 . newspapers.library.in.gov.
  9. Web site: Museum of the City of New York - Furnald Hall at Columbia University. . 2023-04-22 . collections.mcny.org.
  10. News: 1924-04-04 . FIERY CROSS BRINGS COLUMBIA NEGRO AID; Furnald Hall Staudents Rally to Wells's Support After Emblem Burns on Campus. . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-04-22 . 0362-4331.
  11. News: 1924-04-03 . NEGRO AT COLUMBIA DEFIES HIS CRITICS; Law Student Living in Furnald Hall Says He Won't Be Bullied Into Moving. . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-04-22 . 0362-4331.
  12. Web site: The 1924 Cross Burning at Columbia Columbia University Libraries . 2023-04-22 . columbiaandslavery.columbia.edu.
  13. News: 1924-04-05 . 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. . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-04-22 . 0362-4331.
  14. Web site: The Nation Responds to the Cross Burning · The 1924 Cross Burning · Student Exhibits Columbia University and Slavery . 2023-04-22 . slaveryexhibits.ctl.columbia.edu.
  15. News: Moscufo . Michela . 2022-04-19 . Columbia University to publicly mark its historic ties to slavery, racism . en . Reuters . 2023-04-22.
  16. Book: Goldstein, Richard . Helluva Town: The Story of New York City During World War II . 2010-04-13 . Simon and Schuster . 978-1-4165-9302-7 . en.
  17. Book: 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 . 1945 . United States Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School . en.
  18. Web site: Roll On, Columbia! - Issue 55, June 4-18, 1968 - Fifth Estate Magazine . 2023-04-22 . en-US.
  19. News: 1974-11-11 . Columbia‐Riot Suits Of $3‐Million Each Being Heard Here . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-04-22 . 0362-4331.
  20. Book: Marwick, Arthur . The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974 . 2011-09-28 . A&C Black . 978-1-4482-0542-4 . en.
  21. News: 1971-12-10 . COLUMBIA AGREES TO EQUIP 'GAY' AREA . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-04-22 . 0362-4331.
  22. Web site: Student Homophile League at Earl Hall, Columbia University – NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project . 2023-04-22 . www.nyclgbtsites.org.
  23. Web site: Donaldson Queer Lounge Dedicated . 2023-04-22 . www.columbia.edu.
  24. News: Stack . Liam . 2017-06-19 . New York's L.G.B.T.Q. Story Began Well Before Stonewall . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-04-22 . 0362-4331.
  25. News: 1976-02-01 . Columbia Students Will Operate A Nonprofit Grocery on Campus . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-04-22 . 0362-4331.
  26. Web site: 2019-03-13 . Did You Know? Furnald Hall Housed a Student-Run Grocery Store . 2023-04-22 . Columbia College Today . en.
  27. Web site: Columbia Daily Spectator 24 January 1989 — Columbia Spectator . 2023-12-06 . spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu.
  28. News: TimesMachine: Thursday December 22, 1988 - NYTimes.com . en . The New York Times . 2023-12-06.
  29. Web site: Columbia Daily Spectator 9 March 1989 — Columbia Spectator . 2023-12-06 . spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu.
  30. Web site: Columbia Daily Spectator 22 February 1991 — Columbia Spectator . 2023-12-06 . spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu.
  31. Web site: Roussi . Antoaneta . Murder in the Ivy League . 2023-12-06 . www.narratively.com . en.
  32. News: Smith . Dinitia . 2000-07-04 . Poetic Love Affair With New York; For Garcia Lorca, the City Was a Spiritual Metaphor . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-04-22 . 0362-4331.
  33. Web site: CU summer housing: Lorca slept here – News from Columbia's Rare Book & Manuscript Library . 2023-04-22 . blogs.cul.columbia.edu.
  34. Web site: 2017-09-01 . Take Five with Herman Wouk '34 . 2023-04-22 . Columbia College Today . en.
  35. Web site: 2022-09-23 . Pianist Armen Donelian '72 Found Community in Furnald . 2023-04-22 . Columbia College Today . en.
  36. Web site: 2017-07-14 . Take Five with Brad Gooch '73 . 2023-04-22 . Columbia College Today . en.
  37. Web site: 2021-08-19 . Columbia Shaped Every Aspect of This Professor's Life . 2023-04-22 . Columbia College Today . en.
  38. Book: Markovits, Andrei S. . The Passport as Home: Comfort in Rootlessness . 2021-08-10 . Central European University Press . 978-963-386-422-7 . en.
  39. Web site: Eric Garcetti '92, '93 SIPA Is Making Tinseltown Green Columbia College Today . 2023-04-22 . www.college.columbia.edu . 2017-06-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170626021928/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/archive/mar_apr10/features0 . dead .
  40. Book: MacLauchlin, Cory . Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confederacy of Dunces . 2012-03-27 . Da Capo Press . 978-0-306-82040-3 . en.
  41. Book: O'Neill, Mark . China's Great Liberal of the 20th Century - Hu Shih: A Pioneer of Modern Chinese Language . 2022-01-01 . 三聯書店(香港)有限公司,聯合電子出版有限公司代理 . 978-962-04-4918-5 . en.
  42. Book: Biddle, Arthur W. . When Prophecy Still Had a Voice: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Robert Lax . 2001-01-01 . University Press of Kentucky . 978-0-8131-2168-0 . en.
  43. Book: Merton, Thomas . A Thomas Merton Reader . 1974-08-13 . Crown Publishing Group . 978-0-385-03292-6 . en.
  44. Book: Warner, Jayne L. . Turkish Nomad: The Intellectual Journey of Talat S Halman . 2017-11-13 . Bloomsbury Publishing . 978-1-83860-981-8 . en.
  45. Web site: 2008-01-31 . Guide to the Lesley Frost Ballantine Papers, 1890-1980 . 2023-04-22 . Library . en.
  46. Book: Francis, Lesley Lee . You Come Too: My Journey with Robert Frost . 2015-12-03 . University of Virginia Press . 978-0-8139-3746-5 . en.
  47. News: 1983-07-12 . Lesley Ballantine, 84; Wrote Children's Books . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-04-22 . 0362-4331.
  48. Book: Paul, Steve . Literary Alchemist: The Writing Life of Evan S. Connell . 2021-10-29 . University of Missouri Press . 978-0-8262-7464-9 . en.
  49. Book: Katz, Karl . The Exhibitionist: Living Museums, Loving Museums . 2016-09-27 . ABRAMS . 978-1-4683-1348-2 . en.
  50. Book: Wouk, Herman . The Caine Mutiny: A Novel of World War II . 2013-01-15 . Little, Brown . 978-0-316-24856-3 . en.
  51. Book: Vogue . 1953 . Condé Nast Publications . en.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Furnald Hall".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.