Richard Branciforte Oral History

In this session, Richard Branciforte recalls growing up in Jamaica, Queens and applying to Queens College in 1963; encountering local friends and acquaintances on campus after enrolling; social life at Queens College and the popularity of house plans as opposed to fraternities and sororities; starting his own house plan with friends in 1963 called Kingston House on 169th Street and Union Turnpike; the significance of the College Memorial Center as a hub of social life; the makeup of members of Kingston House as primarily men from Jamaica High School, Francis Lewis High School and Bayside High School, and many different religions; the differences, similarities, and rivalries between house plans and fraternities/sororities over the years, plus he decline of the Greek system; house plans’ acceptance strategies, expenses, values, and activities; academics at Queens College in the mid-1960s; the formation of the Metropolitan House Plan Association, which was an umbrella organization for all the house plans across CUNY; the publication of the Castle newspaper and its subsequent banning and reinstatement by Queens College; the waning popularity of house plans in the early 1970s and the demise of Kingston House in 1971; the significance of the Follies and Frolics skit shows put on by fraternities, sororities, and house plans; the 1966 impeachment of the Central House Plan president, the politicking and election following, and his replacement by Branciforte; the influence, makeup, and mandate of the student senate; sexism experienced by women in student and campus politics; his time as a student at Columbia University’s business school and the classism he experienced there as a CUNY graduate; the Students for a Democratic Society takeover of Columbia’s campus in 1969; the Queens College professors Willy Withers (economics), Mary Earhart Dillon (political science), Saul Lutnick (history), and Dr. Hershkowitz (history); the changing physical campus of Queens College; the role of newspapers in his time at Queens College and Columbia University.