Building the Hammer Health Sciences Center, 1973-1976
Exhibit, May-June, 2023
Knowledge Center, Hammer Building, Lobby Level
A new one-case exhibit in the Knowledge Center of the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library explores the history of the Hammer Building’s construction through vintage photographs and original documents.
Fifty years ago, in April 1973, ground was broken for the largest structure to be erected on the Medical Center campus since the original Columbia-Presbyterian building was constructed in the 1920s. Dwarfing even the Black Building across the street from it, the new edifice was to house a greatly expanded library, as well as classrooms and laboratories. While planning for the building went back to 1945, funding and space issues delayed its construction for almost thirty years. Construction took three years to complete with the library opening in April 1976. Only in 1978 was the new structure named for Armand Hammer (VP&S 1921) and his father, Julius Hammer (VP&S 1902), when multi-millionaire Armand Hammer, the Chairman of Occidental Petroleum, donated $5 million to Columbia to cover the costs of construction.
Included are photographs of the April 11, 1973 groundbreaking and the three-year long construction; the 1963 issue of Medical Center newsletter, The Stethoscope, announcing the anonymous gift that named the health sciences library after Presbyterian Hospital board chairman Augustus C. Long; and the program for the October 1976 dedication of the building.
The exhibit is open to anyone with a valid CUIMC ID card.
Top: Columbia University President William J. McGill (l.) and Presbyterian Hospital Chairman of the Board Augustus C. Long (r.) at the groundbreaking for what would be called the Hammer Health Sciences Center, April 11, 1973.
Above: Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library, Lower Level 1, Hammer Building, under construction, August 5, 1975.