HISTORY LESSON HUNTER COLLEGE
A Scholarly New By Neill S. Rosenfeld
Extraordinary accomplishments of FDR's presidency inspire students at Hunter College’s Public Policy Institute, just opened in newly renovated Roosevelt House.
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HE STATELY MANHATTAN townhouse where Franklin (Early U.N. sessions — with her as a U.S. delegate — were at Roosevelt recuperated from paralyzing polio, accepted Hunter’s Bronx campus, now Lehman College.) And Sara struck President Hoover’s concession telegram, delivered his first an early blow for racial equality by hosting a luncheon at her radio address as president-elect and incubated the New Deal has house for the National Council of Women. There she befriended been reborn as Hunter College’s new Public Policy Institute. Mary McLeod Bethune, daughter of slaves and founder of the With visiting scholars joining an interdisciplinary faculty, traditionally black Bethune-Cookman College. graduate students and undergraduates, the institute intends to Sara built the townhouse in 1908 as a gift to her only son and deepen scholarship about the creation and impact of public policy. his wife and distant cousin, Eleanor. Number 47 (Sara) and 49 The first public policy students arrived this fall, while human (Franklin and Eleanor) East 65th St., between Madison and Park rights students start in the spring. They can enter either an Avenues, share a stately façade and a single entrance. Inside, steps undergraduate minor or a certificate program. The institute lead to separate doors of the mirror-image houses. Franklin and enhances other public policy initiatives, including master’s Eleanor returned only sporadically during their more than 12 years programs, at several of the University’s colleges. in the White House. In the spring of 1942, after Sara died at 87, This is a third life for the townhouse. From 1908 to the townhouses went on the market for $60,000. 1942, it was the New York City home of Franklin and Hunter president George N. Shuster asked FDR if he Eleanor Roosevelt and his mother, Sara. And from could convert the building into what became the Sara 1942 until 1992, it was Hunter’s interfaith center — Delano Roosevelt Interfaith House. Roosevelt, the nation’s first collegiate meeting place for students enthusiastic, lowered the price to $50,000 (about of different religions, ethnicities and interests. As city $669,000 today) and kicked in $1,000 himself. Shuster landmarks commissioner before becoming Hunter’s raised the rest from Catholic, Jewish and Protestant president in 2001, Jennifer Raab knew about “this individuals and groups. amazing house with an incredible legacy. It had been The New Deal had financed construction of Hunter’s closed and was in dilapidated, rundown condition.” Bronx campus in the 1930s and the North Building on Restoring the home and using it to study the “public Park Avenue, which Franklin dedicated in 1940. (The issues that were part of the Roosevelt legacy” was a top New Deal also built Brooklyn College.) For more than priority and Chancellor Matthew Goldstein gave his 40 years, Eleanor visited Hunter, then a women’s college, full support. State and private donations often informally, and invited students financed renovations. Iris Weinshall, home. Interfaith House housed some 120 CUNY vice chancellor for facilities extracurricular organizations until planning, construction and disrepair forced its closure in 1992. management, said renowned architect Restoration was complicated because “Picturing Policy: Reimagining Policy in the New Deal” James Polshek “grasped the essence of its exterior and parts of the interior are curated by Rickie Solinger, uses WPA-era photographs to the historic nature of the building, but landmarked. “Elements could be cleaned, illustrate how New Deal programs improved ordinary added the modern elements and but had to go back into the house,” which Americans’ lives. amenities.” was gutted, Weinshall said. With the only Locating such an institute there access to the backyard — where a 115flowed naturally from the interests of its seat auditorium would rise — being original residents. Elected four times, through the house, workers couldn’t use Franklin Delano Roosevelt transformed heavy construction equipment; they also government during the Great couldn’t park a dumpster on the street. So Depression and World War II. His shovelful by shovelful, they carried dirt lasting innovations are as diverse as and debris out the front door and around Social Security, federal bank-deposit the corner, where trucks could briefly park insurance and electrification of rural on Park Avenue. areas. The National Endowment for the Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a daily Humanities recently designated Roosevelt newspaper column read by millions House as part of its “We the People” Dorothea Lange WPA-era photo of Unemployment from 1935 to 1962 and oversaw initiative and awarded it a $40,000 Benefits line in San Francisco. drafting of the United Nations 1948 “Interpreting America’s Historic Places” Universal Declaration of Human Rights. planning grant. The funds will help
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