New School - Building M

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5-story Greek-revival university building originally completed in 1840 as a townhouse for John H. Cornell, who sold it to flour and grain merchant Nathaniel H. Wolfe upon completion. In 1857 it was sold to Thomas E. Foster, then sold again in 1868 to Andrew Carrigan and his wife, Catharine. After her husband's death, Catharine remained in the Fifth Avenue house until 1882 when she sold it to William Wright Tompkins. He died in the house in 1911, and his wife Mary died here in 1934. Mary Tompkins had bequeathed the Fifth Avenue house to St. Luke's Hospital, which sold it in 1937 to Joseph Durst. A renovation completed in 1940 removed the stoop and remodeled the exterior of the lower two floors. The lower two floors now held a restaurant, the Cafe Bruno. Just the next year a night club called The Avenue had opened in the space, but it too closed within a year. The Music Box Canteen opened here in 1942, and operated throughout the war years.

After the Music Box Canteen closed, a renovation in 1946 transformed that space to a cabaret-restaurant and two apartments per floor on the upper floors. A succession of commercial tenants included The Gondolier Restaurant in the late 1950s, followed by the 68 Restaurant. In 1963 Gordon's Graphic Circle Gallery moved in. The gallery was relatively short-lived, and the space was once again an Italian restaurant, Delfino's, run by bothers Enzo and Vincent Delfino, by 1966.

By the first years of the 1980's the Parsons School of Design acquired the property for its Office of Continuing Education. The New School for Social Research took over a few years later. In 1994 a renovation resulted in school offices throughout the building.

The 3-bay facade has been smooth-stuccoed, painted grey, with green windows sills and lintels on the three bays of single-windows on the upper floors. The ground floor has a door at each end, and a wide window in the middle. The 2nd floor has a wide window band outlined in aluminum. The facade is crowned by a green-painted dentilled roof cornice. The building now houses the New School's Computer Instruction Center.

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