NYU featured in several news stories in The New York Times in early 1946.
Former mayor Fiorello LaGuardia addressed 600 NYU students at the University Heights campus in observation of national brotherhood week in February. Carroll Reese, chairman of the Republican National Committee, addressed a School of Commerce student group asserting that Republicans were the true liberals while Democrats were split between descendants of slaveholders and proponents of a Soviet style of government. Reese was one of two Republican congressmen from Tennessee, His district, the First in the northeast corner of the state, and the neighboring Second were historically solid Republican bastions in the then otherwise solidly Democratic South. This area around the Cumberland Mountains, where country music got its start, had supported the Union during the Civil War.
NYU began its film library in 1946. The first films,chosen by the Film department faculty and the undergraduate Motion Picture Club were “Rebecca,” “Stagecoach,” “The Great McGinty,” “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” and “The Grapes of Wrath.”
The engagement of Ellen Pearson, an NYU student was announced in the Times. She was the daughter of Washington Post syndicated columnist Drew Pearson, granddaughter of Eleanor "Cissy" Patterson, publisher and owner of the Washington Times-Herald, and grand-niece of Joseph Medill Patterson, owner and publisher of the Daily News and Robert R. McCormick, publisher and owner of the Chicago Tribune. Drew Pearson was divorced from Ellen's mother after a short marriage and he had been dropped by her grandmother's newspaper for his support of FDR and the New Deal. As an outspoken liberal and anti-anti-Communist his relationship with his former in-laws was not a cordial one. He was the liberal counterpart of the right-wing Walter Winchell, both star journalists who sometimes made unsubstantiated accusations, reveled in innuendo and indulged in character assassination. Ellen's mother, Countess Felicia Gizycka, was a wild, alcoholic Manhattan socialite and novelist who had been kidnapped and held hostage in an Austrian convent by her dissolute father as an infant until she was ransomed by the Patterson clan after the intervention of President Taft and the Tsar. Felicia publicly "divorced" her mother in 1945 and had a strained relationship with her daughter and ex-husband. Ellen's husband-to-be was the son of prominent DC lawyer Thurman Arnold who had led FDR's anti-trust efforts until they were abandoned in wartime.
In April Dr Ernest Melby, Dean of the School of Education, announced the appointment of the school's first "Negro" full-time professor, Dr. Ira De A Reid, as Visiting Professor of Negro Culture and Education. Meantime NYU brought charges against the Benjamin Franklin Hotel in Philadelphia after a hotel clerk refused to rent rooms to six African American NYU track athletes in town to compete in the Penn Relays. The charges were dropped when the hotel apologized, saying their employee was in error. "Negro" track star Frank Dixon had returned to the NYU team after his release from the Army. NYU came in second in the AAAA indoor track national championships. Photos of the school's track team in action shows several racers competing in eyeglasses.
The Division of General Education announced adult education courses in advanced writing to be taught by professional writers and editors including associate editors of Readers Digest, Woman's Home Companion and Coronet and the women's editor of The American Weekly.
In February the school was shut down temporarily, along with many other schools and institutions, when the city experienced a coal shortage
Two NYU Home Economics instructors offered tips to readers of the Times concerned about cooking odors. Helen Hovey asserted that most unappetizing household odors come from careless cooking or poor handling of food and were indications of the lazy cook. She advised putting a small piece of bread in cooking water with cauliflower or cabbage to absorb odors and not overcooking the vegetables. Zelpha Bates recommended cooking frozen broccoli and fish which required less cooking than fresh (??) and therefore were less likely to produce offensive odors.
Artists had been chosen for the busts of Booker T Washington and Sidney Lanier in Hall of Fame on the uptown campus. Washington and Lanier were chosen for the honor in 1945. No commissions had been set for the busts of Thomas Paine and Walter Reed also chosen that year. Richmond Barthe, who was creating the bust of Booker T. Washington, was the first "Negro" artist chosen for the honor. The installations were still major events in 1946 but gradually faded away in public attention in the comiong years. Some busts of the later honorees never were installed. The colonnade at University Heights was designed by Stanford White and was a big tourist attraction in 1946. Only two African Americans and no Jews or Catholics are included among the honored greats.
Ray Verolini of Fitchburg, MA was elected captain of NYU football team at a squad dinner at the NYU Faculty Club on Washington Square. Letters were given to Al Galeano and Bernard Jovans and Irving Kintisch, both returning vets who played with Violets before war. Coach Jack Weinheimer. Managers George Kleinknecht and George Baer also get letters as did Ed Bizlewicz, Tom Capozzoli, Mike Carducci, Al Fiore, Art Cherico, Mike Halfond, Bill Irons, Bill Kaufman. Sy Kuppersmith, Henry Majlinger, John Melone, Mike Merola, Joe Pecora, Angelo Plaina, John Vergari, Ray Verolini, Dan Walker, Larry Weinstein and Wallace Weinstein. Italians and Jews appear to have dominated the squad. Sixty candidates showed up for first day of football training, including returning vet Joe Bonacorsa who had played with the Mitchell Field Aces the previous season. Mitchell Field was an Army Air Force base on Long Island.
The Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association named Sid Tanenbaum the outstanding basketball player in city. He was honored at a dinner at the Hotel New Yorker. Tanenbaum, a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School, had a medical discharge from the Army.