On March 24, 1970, the
New York City Board of Higher Education approved the former Ford Instrument Company building on Long Island City's Thomson Avenue as the location for the College. At this time,
Joseph Shenker was named president of the proposed college. Renovations to the five-story, former factory began the same year. The Ford Instrument Building was intended to be a temporary home for the college. However, in 1974 during the city's fiscal crisis the site had to be sold off, as the expense of maintaining it in the interim was too high. The Army Pictorial Center would later become
Kaufman Astoria Studios. The current campus including Shenker Hall is located at the east end of Long Island City near
Sunnyside. The area is physically separated from the rest of Long Island City by the
Long Island Rail Road's
Sunnyside Yard. The campus runs between Thomson Avenue to the north and 47th Avenue to the south, extending east from 28th Street near the Queensboro Bridge approach to Van Dam Street. The buildings of the campus consist of former Long Island City factories and warehouses converted for school use.
Current buildings C Building At the far west end of the campus is the C Building or Center III, located between 29th and 30th Street near the Queensboro Bridge approach. The building was designed by architect William Higginson, with a reinforced concrete frame, and a glazed white terra cotta facade produced by the
Atlantic Terra Cotta Company. A spur track from the nearby Long Island Rail Road fed into the rear of the building, allowing freight cars to load and unload inside the facility. The biscuit factory was erected as part of the Degnon Terminal area of Long Island City, created by developer Michael Degnon. Degnon's firm was the contractor that excavated the
Steinway Subway Tunnel to Midtown Manhattan. He also proposed and partially developed a major industrial port revolving around
Flushing Bay, which later became
Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. By the 1970s, the building was used as the headquarters for
Executone, a producer of telephone systems. It also served as a
Gimbels warehouse. In 1975, LaGuardia Community College began leasing of space on the third floor the Executone Building, including seven classrooms and a lecture hall. In 1981, the college leased an additional of space on the building's seventh floor. In 1985, the Executone Building became part of a four-building complex known as the International Design Center New York (IDCNY). The complex included the adjacent Bucilla Building (Center II) and the former
American Chicle Company factory (Center I). In 2006 the college announced a series of projects to renovate the C Building. Other work involved constructing escalators in the building, overhauling passenger elevators, and converting three
freight elevators into passenger elevators. The building features a large rooftop billboard sign which is illuminated at night. Over the years it has featured the names of its various tenants, including Loose-Wiles, Executone, and IDCNY. As part of the modern renovations to the C Building, the sign was fitted with branding for LaGuardia Community College.
B Building The B Building or Center II is located between 30th Street and 30th Place, across from the C Building. The building occupies the northern half of the block between Thomson and 47th Avenues; the southern half was purchased by Eveready for a future expansion which was never built, and it is currently used as a parking lot. By the 1940s, the plant was used by the Bernhard Ulmann Company and its subsidiary Bucilla Yarn. The Bucilla Building became Center II of the International Design Center New York in 1985. In 2006, LaGuardia Community College received $55 million allocated by the
New York State Legislature for the purchase of new school buildings. This was used to lease two floors in the Bucilla Building beginning in 2008. In November 2009, the college opened a Healthcare Career Center inside the B Building. Four of the eight floors of the building are occupied by the Queens High School Complex of the
New York City Department of Education. The complex houses three public high schools:
Bard High School Early College Queens, the Academy of Finance and Enterprise, and the High School of Applied Communication. The M Building was constructed in 1920 as the
White Motor Company truck factory and service station, part of the Degnon Terminal. It replaced the company's plant at Broadway and 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan. In 1941, the building was sold to the
Ford Instrument Company, a subsidiary of
Sperry Rand. The factory manufactured electronics for the
United States Armed Forces' World War II efforts. Following the war, the factory produced
missile guidance systems for the
Army Ballistic Missile Agency, designed the controls and instrumentation for the
USS Seawolf nuclear submarine, and created other computer systems such as aircraft
navigation systems for the U.S. military. The Ford Instrument building was purchased by CUNY for the college, then provisionally known as "Community College IX", in 1970. "Phase I" renovations were conducted in the building prior to the opening of the college in September 1971. At this time, the building included basic classrooms and offices, a 115-seat library, and a "Great Hall" at the south end of the building for assemblies inherited from Sperry Rand. Additional "Phase II" renovations were completed in 1976, which added new classrooms and a theater, an atrium or
mall referred to as an "interior street", and converted the Great Hall into a gymnasium. The E building was originally operated as the Equitable Paper Bag factory building. The building was purchased by LaGuardia in 1984, with the college proposing a major project to renovate the building and connect it to the Main Building. The plans were drawn up by
Danforth Toan of the Warner, Burns, Toan and Lund firm. and the new building complex was dedicated and opened on June 4, 1992.
Middle College High School Campus At the far east end of the campus across from the M and E Buildings is the Middle College High School Campus, formerly the college's L Building, located at Van Dam Street and 47th Avenue. The building houses two public high schools affiliated with the college,
Middle College High School and
International High School. Prior to educational use, the building served as the factory for
X-Acto hobby knives, and as a depot for
Pan American World Airways. The building was purchased by the college in 1989. At this time, Middle College High School was moved into the building, with classrooms used by the high school during the day and by the college at night. In addition, an Early Child Care Learning Center for the children of college students was created in the building. On October 20, 1989, the building was dedicated as the Marie LaGuardia Building or L Building in honor of the wife of
Fiorello La Guardia, who in 1982 donated records and memorabilia that formed the basis of the
La Guardia and Wagner Archives. An 820-seat addition or annex was completed in October 2012, designed by Goshow Architects. This allowed International High School to move from the M Building into the Middle College Campus.
Former buildings S Building Library Services Center. The former S Building, a.k.a. the Satellite Building or Satellite College (31-11 Thomson Avenue), is located on Thomson Avenue across to the north of the Main Building. It was also the headquarters and warehouse for Stroheim & Romann, a fabric and interior design company. LaGuardia began renting space in the building in 1973, occupying of space. In 1984, the college began leasing the second and third floors of the building, in addition to the basement and first floor already in use. The building features a rooftop parking lot, which was used by the college. The college ceased use of the building in the 1990s, after the completion of the E & M Building complex and the acquisition of the L Building. The library renovated the building for use as its Library Services Center, opening in 2010 at the cost of $50 million. The center contains a automated book sorting machine in the building's basement, and a digital imaging center. ==Academics==