Established in 1974 by the Catholic Campus Ministry (CCM) here at Columbia University, Ford Hall was formed from two adjoining Brownstones (614 & 616 W. 114th Street) as a Campus Ministry Residence. In February of 1975 Father George Barry Ford (the Catholic Chaplain of Columbia from 1929- 1946), Terence Cardinal Cooke, and Columbia University President William McGill, Father Dinter (the then current Chaplain), joined a collection of residents, families, and university officials at a ceremony dedicating the Hall in honor of Father Ford. After Father Ford’s death on August 1st, 1978, a portrait was commissioned in his honor the following year to celebrate the House’s fifth anniversary. This portrait hangs in Ford Hall to this day in remembrance of him.

Though for the first twelve years of its existence Ford Hall served primarily as a residence for undergraduates involved with CCM, in September of 1982 the house was given a new mission. Called to serve as a house for a community of Graduates dedicated to living a collective life of charitable witness in the neighborhood in support of CCM’s charitably outreach, Ford Hall invited a local charity called Community Impact to establish and operate a food pantry and donation center out of the first floor of the 616 building.

In 1986 Ford Hall’s role was again modified to function as a residence for Catholic Graduate Students studying at Columbia University, a role which stands to this day. Though decades have passed since its founding, those of us here at Ford Hall continue to bear up the legacy of love, service, faith, community, and excellence passed down to us by our predecessors.