The Studebaker Building is located at 615 West 131st Street, between

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

and 12th Avenue, and between 131st and 132nd Streets, in the

Manhattanville Manhattanville (also known as West Harlem or West Central Harlem) is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan bordered on the north by 135th Street; on the south by 122nd and 125th Streets; on the west by Hudson River; and ...

section of the

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It is in the northeast quadrant of the Manhattanville Campus of

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. It is four blocks away from the 125th Street stop on the 1 subway train, and the subway station at 125 Street and St. Nicholas Avenue has stops for the A, B, C and D trains. The area is also served by the M4, M5 and M104 buses. It is one of three historic buildings to have survived in the university's Manhattanville expansion, the others being

Prentis Hall Prentis Hall is a historic building located on the Manhattanville campus of Columbia University at 632 West 125th Street. It houses the university's department of music and the Computer Music Center, as well as facilities for the School of the ...

and the Nash Building. The former

Studebaker Studebaker was an American wagon and automobile manufacturer based in South Bend, Indiana, with a building at 1600 Broadway, Times Square, Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1852 and incorporated in 1868 as the Studebaker Brothers M ...

automobile finishing plant, complete with a

freight elevator An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They are ...

, was constructed in 1923. It is constructed largely of brick with a decorative white porcelain trim, is 6 stories tall, has a plot size of 175 feet by 200 feet, and has 210,000 square feet of floorspace. The blue Studebaker logo used between 1912 and 1934 is still visible on the southwest corner near the top. Originally built as a finishing plant, it was later used to store and distribute cars and parts manufactured in

South Bend South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...

, as a sales and services headquarters for the company. Studebaker sold the building due to declining profits to the Borden Milk Company in 1937, which used it as a milk processing plant. Later it was home to various warehouses (e.g. for the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 int ...

), offices, and small manufacturing facilities such as the Madame Alexander doll company and Scientific Prototypes which manufactured sirens for every NYPD police vehicle from 1979 until 1989. In the late 1980s, Columbia University began to rent office space there, and subsequently bought the building. In 2007, most of the Finance department for the University, including the Student Financial Services department, moved to the Studebaker Building from the historic Kent Hall.

References

{{Columbia University Harlem Industrial buildings and structures in Manhattan Columbia University campus Studebaker