The Baruch/CCNY Downtown campus community of the 1940s raised $75,000 in bonds and stamps to "purchase" the fighter plane Spirit of CCNY.
Seventy years ago, on Feb. 14, 1944, the Baruch student newspaper The Ticker announced the completion of the U.S. fighter plane the Spirit of CCNY:
“The long-awaited fighter plane, ‘Spirit of CCNY,’ has finally rolled off the assembly line and is scheduled to take to the air . . . The quest was successful and the Spirit awaits a crew to fly it to victory.”
What made Spirit even more dear to the hearts of the students was that the campus community had raised the $75,000 in bonds and stamps needed to purchase the fighter plane.
CCNY students were equally proud of the two vessels under the control of the U.S. Maritime Commission that honored their college. (The commission named various vessels for the country’s principal colleges and universities, with names assigned in order of the years the universities were founded.) In 1943 the S.S. Townsend Harris was launched from the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard near Baltimore. Two years later, the C.C.N.Y. Victory, a cargo ship fitted to carry troops during the period of redeployment, was launched from that same yard.
The ships were outfitted with various souvenirs from the College: framed photographs and Wedgwood commemorative plates.
—Diane Harrigan
Note: The above article first ran in Baruch College Magazine Winter-Spring 2004.
Alumni, Share Your Baruch Stories: Do you have a memory from the World War II era at Baruch College/CCNY Downtown? We’d love to hear it. Leave it as a comment below, or e-mail communications@baruch.cuny.edu to share it with a BCAM editor.
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