As a result of the efforts made by the civic-minded groups, who felt that there should be more institutions for higher education in Bronx, the Bronx Community College (BCC) was established in 1957. Initially the College didn’t have a campus of its own and the classes began at the Hunter College and later the classes shifted to Bronx High School of Science. Later The University Heights Campus of the New York University was acquired by the Dormitory Authority of the state of the New York in 1973. The New York University sold the campus due to the forthcoming bankruptcy. Hence later that year, spacious campus spread across 55 acres became the new base for the college’s operations.

New York University’s Undergrad and Engineering school was originally housed in BCC campus, whose architecture was done by Stanford White and Marcel Breuer did its concrete buildings. BCC’s campus has been used as a landmark on couple of occasions. Like in 2001, BCC’s campus was used to depict MIT in a motion picture titled A Beautiful Mind, apart from that the dome of the Campus was also used in the motion picture titled The Good Shepherd. BCC campus also houses the hall of fame for Great Americans. The hall of fame was also designed by Stanford White. The main objective of the hall was to honor all those Americans who made a significant impact in any field in the history of America. The hall also includes bronze busts of Alexander Graham Bell, Eli Whitney, and George Westinghouse. The campus of the college was founded by Mitchell McCracken who was the Chancellor of the NYU since 1891 till 1910. The building was founded in 1900 as part of undergrad college of NYU. At the time when NYU’s campus was built, a number of other universities in search of the bigger campuses also moved up to Upper Manhattan and Bronx.  

In 2007, BCC celebrated its 50th anniversary; the college was founded in 1957, and began its operations on February 2, 1959 with 125 students at Bronx High School of Science situated at Creston Avenue. And it wasn’t that late, when college came out to be well reputed community college that offered a wide variety of academic programs. Dr. Morris Meister was the first president of the college and after the retirement of Dr. Morris Meister, Dr. James A. Colston became the second president of the Bronx Community College on 1st August, 1966. After the retirement of Dr. Colston Dr. Morton Rosen stock was named the next Acting President of the College. The college’s third president Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr. took its place on September 1, 1977. After when Dr. Brown retired in June 1933, Dr. Leo A. Corbie took the place of acting president of the college. Later on August 26, 1996, Dr. Carolyn G. Williams became the fourth president of the college and during her leadership that lasted for ten years, national and international outreach programs expanded through the National Center for Educational Alliances (NCEA).