Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and NYU School of Engineering History: 1854-Present
In 1854, both the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute and the NYU School of Civil Engineering and Architecture were founded, in Brooklyn and Manhattan, repectively. Through a long and tumultuous history, the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute will eventually become Polytechnic University, then later merging with NYU, giving it to its current state as the New York University Tandon School of Engineering.
The Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute was opened with a class of 26 men, aged 9-17. Later on in 1871, the first bachelor's degrees were offered by the school. Following a name change in 1889 to Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, graduate programs were starting to be offered beginning in 1901. In 1917, the preparatory program separated from the institute and by 1921, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn was offering doctoral degrees. In 1957 under the lead of famous Polytechnic president George Bugliarello, the school made a move from 99 Livingston Street to Rogers Hall in Downtown Brooklyn, the basis for what NYU Tandon's campus is today (Wolford, 2011).
On the other side, the NYU School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, originating in Greenwich Village, moved up to The Heights campus in The Bronx in 1894. In 1899, the school’s name was changed to the School of Applied Science and was officially separated from University College. By the 1908-09 academic year, the number of students had grown to 277. In 1920, the name changed yet again, this time to the College of Engineering, and separate electrical and chemical engineering departments were created. Although at that time the college usually excluded women from enrolling in day classes, an exception was made and 125 women enrolled in day courses in engineering to allow them to work in the aviation industry in response to the wartime manpower shortage (NYU Tandon, 2024).
NYU's engineering school merged with the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1973, becoming the Polytechnic Institute of New York. The Heights campus was then sold to the City of New York, and most of the faculty and students moved down to the Polytechnic campus in Downtown Brooklyn. This exhibit will focus more closely on this consolidation between the 2 schools in the 1973 merger section, as the simplicty of the merger from the outside was incredibly more complicated internally, both between the schools as well as with the New York State Department of Education (Wolford, 2011).
Due to financial issues within the Polytechnic University (changed from Polytechnic Institute of New York to promote its graduate programs), a new affiliation between Polytechnic University and NYU was created, changing the name of the school to the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. Eventually, due to continuting financial issues, the Polytechnic Institute of New York University offically Merged with New York University in 2014, with NYU taking full control of the school and merging its programs with Polytechnic. Finally in 2015, Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon donate $100 million, and the school is renamed NYU Tandon School of Engineering in recognition of the Tandons’ generosity and their belief in the school’s mission and promise (NYU Tandon, 2024).