More than 500 BMCC students, faculty and staff gathered on the west side of the skeletal remains of the former academic building Fiterman Hall, where local lawmakers and BMCC leaders called on the New York City government — and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, most pointedly — for funding needed to fulfill the promise of a new Fiterman Hall. The event commemorated the 15th anniversary of the gift of the building, and seventh of its destruction.
After marching from the main campus building at 199 Chambers Street, the crowd listened to ringing remarks from New York City Council member Charles Barron (District 42), chair of the Council’s Higher Education Committee, Council member Alan Gerson (District 1), chair of the Council’s Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Committee, and BMCC President Antonio Pérez, as well as others, who illustrated the importance of Fiterman Hall to BMCC.
“Students are tired of being cramped into classrooms,” said Barron, his voice resonating off the sides of buildings in the area. “BMCC needs space for education, and it needs it now. It’s time to rebuild Fiterman, at the very least, for the students of BMCC.”
Gerson, noting the construction materials wrapping Fiterman Hall, stated that the building “deserves a better birthday that this.” He then echoed Barron’s remarks, stating loudly: “This delay is inexcusable .. We stand here united to ensure Fiterman Hall is rebuilt as soon as possible. No excuses, no way, no how — get it done now!”
Also speaking, and joining Barron, Gerson and Pérez on stage were: BMCC Student Government Association President Curtis Browne; PSC-CUNY union President Barbara Bowen; Rebecca Hill, professor and PSC-CUNY chapter chair for BMCC; University Faculty Senate Trustee Manfred Philipp; and University Student Senate Trustee Rouzbeh Nazari.
Fiterman Flashback
Fifteen years ago, BMCC was in a position not unlike the one it is in today: with a burgeoning enrollment, it was crowding 17,000 students into a building designed to fit almost half that, and it desperately needed space.
Then, on Sept. 10, 1993, philanthropists Miles and Shirley Fiterman donated to BMCC their 15-floor, 375,000 square foot office building, conveniently located at 30 West Broadway, just blocks south of the college’s main hub. The estimated $30 million gift was, at the time, the largest private gift to a community college in U.S. history. Renamed Miles and Shirley Fiterman Hall, 3,000 students immediately began attending classes there.
“The gift of Fiterman Hall didn’t simply enlarge our space, it transformed it,” Pérez said from a podium located just next to the carcass of a once lively building. “By 2001, Fiterman had evolved, literally, into a secondary campus, relieving the strain on our main building. The addition of so much space improved the quality of life and dramatically enhanced the educational experience of our students and staff.”
But on Sept. 11, 2001, major renovations were only weeks from completion when 7 World Trade Center collapsed during the terror attacks, irreparably damaging Fiterman Hall, and cutting BMCC’s instructional space by one third. After years of negotiations, the building was just recently approved for its long-awaited decontamination. Deconstruction and redevelopment were set to begin in March 2009, but rising costs has left CUNY short $71.2 million. The work cannot begin until the money is in place, and for that, CUNY is looking to the city government.
“It is our collective responsibility,” Pérez said, “to provide an academic environment that is conducive to excellence. I ask our city government not to leave our students at the doorstep of their home, but let them in with the dignity they deserve as hard-working New Yorkers only seeking to make a better life for themselves and their families.”
Fitermans’ Vision Restored?
Since Fiterman was destroyed, the college BMCC has had the largest student body of any CUNY college, but the smallest square footage per student of any community college in New York State (BMCC’s current enrollment is pushing 22,000).
Rebecca Hill, a social sciences professor and the PSC-CUNY union chapter chair for BMCC, told the crowd she has heard a number of horror stories from students and faculty, citing such examples as cramped, windowless classrooms, and the dingy, noisy classrooms in the trailers that line the Westside Highway along the campus. She called these examples “intolerable conditions unacceptable for learning”
“Mayor Bloomberg says that CUNY is ‘asking for too much,'” Hill said, nodding her head in disgust. “However, the mayor has not experienced such sticker shock when evaluating whether or not to publicly fund private construction projects for the New York Yankees, New York Mets, the Bronx terminal market, and the New Jersey Nets arena in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards. CUNY is at least as important to New York City as those wealthy sports teams and real estate developers who have taken billions of dollars in tax-abatements and incentives since 2001, don’t you think?”
After city and school leaders delivered their remarks, student government president Curtis Browne excited the crowd with his refrain, “What do we want? Fiterman Hall! When do we want it? Now!”
“When they made their donation, the Fitermans had a vision,” Browne said. “They saw within us the future of the United States of America. They saw lawyers, doctors, professors … and we cannot lose this vision the Fitermans had.”
Audio speech of Curtis Browne
