FIT’s campus occupies an entire block in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, an area filled with galleries, shops, cafes, restaurants, and theaters. The campus provides a vibrant, supportive environment for our uncommonly creative community. Campus highlights include the Gladys Marcus Library and the renowned Museum at FIT, which houses one of the world’s most important collections of fashion and textiles. In addition to a range of specialized labs, studios, and technologies geared to FIT’s academic programs, the college offers a full-service dining hall, athletic facilities, and a Barnes & Noble bookstore. Three residence halls are located on West 27th Street and a fourth is on nearby West 31st Street.
Fred P. Pomerantz Art and Design Center
Along with the academic and administrative offices of the School of Art and Design, the Pomerantz Center houses display and exhibit design rooms; drawing, painting, photograph, printmaking, and sculpture studios; a graphics laboratory; a modelmaking workshop; and the Katie Murphy Amphitheatre. An innovative new gallery located in the lobby provides exhibition space for the school’s students, faculty, and alumni as well as outside artists.
PrintFX and fablab
Room D529, (212) 217-5470
A professionally staffed graphics laboratory, Print/FX has high-resolution, large-format printers to accommodate banners, CAD prints, displays, fine art prints, overlays, photography, posters, presentation graphics, and textile proofs. FabLab services include 3D printing, laser cutting, vinyl cutting, and button pin printing. The self-service area offers scanning, trimming, soft proofing, 3D desktop scanning, sensor handheld 3D scanning, haptic pens, and Wacom Cintiqs.
Marvin Feldman Center and the Business and Liberal Arts Center
The Marvin Feldman and Business and Liberal Arts centers house academic and specialized classrooms, cutting and sewing labs, design studios, a multimedia foreign languages lab, knitting labs, and the Morris W. and Fannie B. Haft Theater. Specialized facilities include the fabrics and findings lab, which replicates the resources and techniques used by working fashion designers. Also located in these buildings are the academic and administrative offices for the Jay and Patty Baker School of Business and Technology and the School of Liberal Arts.
Peter G. Scotese Computer-Aided Design and Communications Center
Room C220, (212) 217-3520
The center enables Art and Design students to explore technology for use in advertising, animation, fashion, interiors, packaging, photography, textiles, and toys. Baker School of Business and Technology students use the labs for patternmaking, textile development, production management, and more. The center is also available to students in the schools of Liberal Arts and Graduate Studies and the Center for Continuing and Professional Studies.
The center offers access to both Mac and Windows operating systems, and supports specialized coursework in various programs. Labs are available with peripherals and software applications from Adobe, Apple, AutoDesk, Corel, Dassault Systèmes, Gerber, IBM, JDA, Lectra, NedGraphics, Nemetschek, Pointcarré, Pulse, Stoll, and many others.
David Dubinsky Student Center
This eight-story building offers facilities for both academic and extracurricular activities. These include arts and crafts studios, lounges, the student-run Style Shop boutique, student government and club offices, a radio station, gyms and dance studios, and a state-of-the-art fitness center. Students are encouraged to take advantage of the full range of services and activities offered by Student Life, located on the seventh floor. Also in the center are Health Services, the Counseling Center, Disability Support Services (FIT-ABLE), Educational Opportunity Programs, and Financial Aid Services. The dining hall and Barnes & Noble bookstore are here as well.
Academic facilities in Dubinsky include the Toy Design lab, Jewelry Design studios, the Annette Green Fragrance Foundation Studio, the design/research lighting lab, and a television studio.
Shirley Goodman Resource Center
The center, on Seventh Avenue, houses the Gladys Marcus Library, The Museum at FIT, and the School of Graduate Studies.
Gladys Marcus Library
(212) 217-4340
fitnyc.edu/library
The library, on the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors of the Goodman Resource Center, holds more than 300,000 print, nonprint, and digital resources. The periodicals collection includes more than 400 current subscriptions, specializing in international design and trade publications. Electronic resources include more than 150 searchable databases hosted by FIT, the New York State Library, and SUNYConnect. All databases are available remotely, via login, 24 hours a day. The library also offers specialized resources, such as fashion and trend forecasting services, FIT Archive on Demand, and sketch collections.
The library includes three classrooms, Mac and PC workstations, printers, scanners, and self-service copiers. The library entrance is on the fifth floor, which is home to Research and Instructional Services, Access Services, and the main book collection. The sixth floor holds open lab areas, a maker space, an art resource lab, and VR stations. On the fourth floor are print newspapers and periodicals, forecasting services, and the Special Collections and College Archives unit.
Special Collections holds rare books that have been vetted for rarity or importance in the fields of fashion, textile, costume, interior design, and other creative areas. The collection includes more than 6,000 linear feet of periodicals, oral histories, and designer scrapbooks. Our unique manuscript collections contain works on paper, including many original designer sketches, and are especially strong in documenting American fashion design from the late 19th century through the 1970s and the history of New York City’s Seventh Avenue Garment District. Many resources are available online. Special Collections is accessible by appointment only.
Collection highlights include:
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A. Beller and Company fashion sketches
Bergdorf Goodman Custom Salon fashion sketches
Marc Bohan for Christian Dior fashion sketches
Lucile, Lady Duff Gordon manuscript collection
FIT Talks, an oral history program of the creative industries
The Museum at FIT
(212) 217-4530
fitnyc.edu/museum
The Museum at FIT, accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, is New York City’s only museum dedicated to the art of fashion. Founded in 1969 by the Fashion Institute of Technology, the museum collects, conserves, documents, exhibits, and interprets fashion. Its mission is to advance knowledge of fashion through exhibitions, programs, and publications. The museum organizes an extensive program of specialized classes, tours, and lectures, including an annual fashion symposium.
The museum’s permanent collection encompasses more than 50,000 garments and accessories, dating from the 18th century to the present, with a particular strength in women’s fashion by designers such as Azzedine Alaïa, Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, Halston, and Charles James. There are more than 4,000 pairs of shoes in the collection, as well as 30,000 textiles, dating from the fifth century to the present. The museum’s collecting policy focuses on aesthetically and historically significant directional clothing, accessories and textiles, and visual materials, such as photographs, with an emphasis on contemporary avant-garde fashion.
The museum has three galleries. The largest gallery, located on the lower level, is devoted to special exhibitions, which receive extensive coverage in the media. The Fashion and Textile History Gallery is the only venue in the United States to offer a permanent (rotating) display of 250 years of fashion, drawn solely from the museum’s collections. Gallery FIT is dedicated to student and faculty exhibitions.
All exhibitions are free to the public, and the museum attracts more than 100,000 visitors a year. Museum hours are Tuesdays through Fridays, noon to 8 pm, and Saturdays, 10 am to 5 pm.
School of Graduate Studies
(212) 217-4300
fitnyc.edu/gradstudies
FIT offers seven graduate programs. The Master of Arts programs are Art Market Studies; Exhibition and Experience Design; and Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice. The Master of Fine Arts programs are Fashion Design and Illustration. The Master of Professional Studies programs are Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management and Global Fashion Management. The administrative and faculty offices, classrooms, laboratories, study collections, and research room for the graduate programs are housed on the third, fourth, and sixth floors of the Goodman Center.
RESIDENCE HALLS
FIT’s four residence halls house a total of 2,300 students.
- Coed Hall: Offers traditional double and triple accommodations, double apartments, and a limited number of quad apartments.
- Nagler Hall: Female-only residence hall offering mainly traditional-style double accommodations (without air conditioning) and a limited number of air-conditioned double and single apartments.
- Alumni Hall: Offers quad apartments only.
- George S. and Mariana Kaufman Hall: For current/returning FIT students and summer housing for visiting interns. Comprised of mainly double apartments, with a limited number of triple, quad, and single apartments available.
Alumni Hall, Coed Hall, and Nagler Hall are on the West 27th Street campus. Kaufman Hall is in the nearby Hudson Yards neighborhood; shuttle service to campus is provided. For more information, see Residential Life.
The Conference Center at FIT
The Conference Center at FIT features conference and training rooms for industry seminars and workshops. The Conference Center also houses the John E. Reeves Great Hall, a nearly 6,400-square-foot venue for exhibitions, fashion shows, lectures, trade shows, and other large events.
clery statement
The safety and well-being of FIT’s students, faculty, staff, and visitors is of paramount importance. Pursuant to the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, FIT publishes an annual report containing crime statistics and statements of security policy, accessible online at fitnyc.edu/safety/statistics. A paper copy of the report will be provided upon request by contacting Public Safety’s administrative office number at (212) 217-4999.