The original Free Academy building was not only inadequate for the new School of Business and Civic Administration, but also unsafe. Parts of the building were not used and inspections identified numerous fire hazards. The School of Business moved out of the Free Academy and into temporary quarters in 1926, and the eighty-year-old Gothic style building was demolished in February 1928. After a proposal to move the School of Business to a new location was rejected, construction of the current sixteen-story building on the corner of 23rd Street and Lexington Avenue began in December 1928. The first classes were held in the new building in September 1929 although it was not completed until 1930.
