Fiorello H. LaGuardia Community College/CUNY

ffers associate degrees in the arts, sciences, and applied sciences, as well as continuing education programs. Laguardia Community College was founded on January 22, 1968 by a resolution of the Board of Higher Education of the City of New York,[1] a New York State agency which was the precursor to the Board of Trustees of CUNY.[2] The new college, originally designated "Community College 9", was to be
comprehensive ... in terms of its variety of program offering and its community service mission. ... The college will be oriented to the needs and interests of the community in which it is located, providing cultural activities, special services, continuing education and skills training opportunities for community residents of all ages.[1]
The college's first president was Dr. Joseph Shenker, who had been Acting President of Kingsborough Community College, and its first location was a five-story 50-year old factory building on Thomson Avenue in Long Island City which has most recently been used to manufacture materiel for the U.S. Army in World War II.[1] In October 1970, the Board of Higher Education named the new college after Mayor Laguardia, noting his
lifelong public service to the people of the City of New York and of the United States, and his ambitious and successful leadership of good government campaigns to provide decent living conditions and guarantee democratic processes for all...[1]
The college was officially opened on September 22, 1971, and received its first accreditation, from the Middle States Association, in December 1972, when the college graduated its first class.[1]
On September 22, 1972, the school received from the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, for payment of $1, a 5.2-acre (21,000 m2) site in Astoria that had formerly been the U.S. Army Pictoral Center, with the intention of moving the college to a campus on the new site, but when the city's budget crisis hit in 1974, the site had to be sold off, as the expense of maintaining it in the interim was too high. In the years since its founding, the college has remained in its original building, but has expanded into nearby buildings. Along with the Long Island City Business Coalition, the college occupies the historic Sunshine Biscuits Building, building "C" on their main campus.