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Creator
Collins, Christiane Crasemann
Call number
Sc MIRS Collins 1988-12
Physical description
5 audio_recordings
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Christiane C. Collins audio collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division, The New York Public Library
Sponsor
An anonymous donor funded preliminary processing for this collection. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supported a research library-wide grant for the digitization, and funded the Schomburg for the description and production of the finding aid as part of The Next Century of Black Studies Project.
Repository
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
Access to materials
Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.

Neighborhood historian and urban planning specialist, Christiane Crasemann Collins (1926-2018), worked with the West Harlem Coalition for Morningside Park to campaign against Columbia University's expansion into Morningside Park in 1968. The collection contains five audio recordings dated 1968 and circa 1976-1977.

Biographical/historical information

Neighborhood historian and urban planning specialist, Christiane Crasemann Collins (1926-2018), was an art librarian at the Adam and Sophie Gimbel Design Library at Parsons School of Design in New York. She was also a resident of Morningside Heights with her husband, Columbia University art history professor George Collins.

In the 1960s, Columbia University's campus expansions included a proposal for a gymnasium in Morningside Park. Collins worked with the West Harlem Coalition for Morningside Park, a group of community leaders and neighborhood organizations, to resist the university's expansion with marches, rallies, and a sit-in blocking construction in 1968. Amid student protests at the university, Black students occupying Hamilton Hall in the spring of 1968 included halting the gym's construction as one of their demands. In 1969, Columbia University abandoned their plan to expand into the park.

Scope and arrangement

The collection contains five audio recordings dated 1968 and circa 1976-1977. They are organized alphabetically by title, and then chronologically. The original format of the audio recordings was cassette, with many items containing two or more parts.

A recording of a talk, delivered by Collins at the New Jersey Institute of Technology School of Architecture, discusses Columbia University's expansion into Morningside Park, and her work with community leaders and the West Harlem Coalition for Morningside Park. Four recordings are Columbia University School of Architecture faculty meetings discussing the reorganization of the school in the aftermath of the spring 1968 protests.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Christiane C. Collins, 1988.

Processing information

Collection inventoried by Nathan Evans. Collection processed and described by Lyric Evans-Hunter, archivist; and Shola Lynch, curator. Finding aid published in 2024.

Separated material

See the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division for the Christiane C. Collins collection of the West Harlem Coalition for Morningside Park and Urban Problems of the Contiguous Communities: West Harlem, Manhattan Valley, Morningside Heights and Manhattanville, Sc MG 299.

See the Photographs and Prints Division for the photographs.

Related Material

See the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division for A Storm Foretold: Columbia University and Morningside Heights, 1968 (2015) by Christiane Crasemann Collins, Sc E 16-1633.

Using the collection

Location

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Third Floor

Access to materials

Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.