During the CUAA block party in 2014, Oral Histories Videos were made by Naomi Thieves. Here is a copy of the article about the project, originally posted in the April 2014 CUAA Newsletter.
The Cooper Union History Project (CUHP) is a joint effort between the Cooper Union Alumni Association, the Ad-Hoc Committee of the Associates of Cooper Union, and Friends of Cooper Union, with the goals of preserving and sharing Cooper Union’s history. One initiative of the CUHP is an oral history project, which kicked off during Founder’s Day 2013, when Noemi Charlotte Thieves A’11 recorded mini-videos of participants answering the question, “Where would you be without Cooper?”
The CUAA Ad-Hoc Committee on the Associates continued the Oral History Project at the Peter Cooper Block Party. About a dozen alumni from every school shared their stories with Noemi Charlotte Thieves of their admittance to Cooper Union, what their favorite memories were, and what they have been up to since. Some applied in The Great Hall in the mid-fifties, others in the late eighties, one in the mid-forties, and one was a fourth-generation Cooper alumna, her parents, grandparent, and great-grandparent having graduated all through the twentieth century back to the class of 1892! The most difficult question for consideration was provided by Rocco Cetera CE’99. It was “How would you describe Cooper Union to someone who never attended it?” We know there are plenty of other alumni who would love to share their stories about Cooper on camera, so look out for us at future events!