Authored by Kevin Quinn

Farmingdale State College “Modern Community syllabus,” page 1, circa 1948.

“Modern Community in 1950”

As part of an Academic Service-Learning project, I was tasked with cataloging textbooks and notebooks donated by an alumnus of the 1950 class at Farmingdale State College. The donor of the material was Mr. Benjamin P. Vecchio, a graduate of the Building Construction (BC) program at LIATI. At LIATI, students were either part of the Agricultural College, or the Technical College. As a student in BC, Mr. Vecchio was a part of the Technical College that, according to a campus map[1], made its home on Conklin Street in Farmingdale, NY, away from the Main Campus.  The history of the Technical Campus is interesting because the ‘Central Hall’ building used to be known as the Nazareth Trade School, a home for Orphans between 1900 and 1940.[2] “It was held at the old tech area which was on Conklin Street. All the classes were there, none of them were here, except sports, sports were here, but the rest were over there.”[3] Continue reading →