Historic Lehman Suite Grants Character to Non-Descript IAB

A signed photograph of F.D.R. sits on the end-table facing the armchair in which a student has comfortably positioned himself during a discussion section. It’s as if Roosevelt himself is looking at this young scholar, impressed by the U.S. senatorial cups and trophies situated nonchalantly at the back of the office.

In what many deem a cold and impersonal International Affairs Building, the Herbert Lehman Suite, named after the New York governor and U.S. senator, is pleasantly “convivial and intimate,” according to, Michael Woodsworth, deputy director of the Hebert Lehman Center for American History.

As part of the center, the old wood-panelled room is filled with leather chairs, a reconstruction of Lehman’s Park Avenue study. It is used for talks, classroom space, and other activities that “foster the study of American history,” Woodsworth said. Filled with portraits of the Lehman family—the same one that founded Lehman Brothers investment bank—the senator’s personal keepsakes, and shelves of books and photographs, the room exposes much about both the private and public lives of the admired statesman.

To Columbia students, the Lehman name seems ubiquitous. Lehman Library on Barnard’s campus. The Lehman Social Sciences Library is in the School of International and Public Affairs. Lastly, Herbert Lehman’s wife, Edith Altschul Lehman, lives on through Altschul Auditorium in IAB and Altschul Hall at Barnard. A major donor to Columbia University, the Lehman family gave funds to replicate Herbert’s study and preserve it along with the Lehman papers, now under the supervision of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, for 40 years.

Herbert Lehman served as governor of New York after Roosevelt, then on the U.N. Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in the 1940s, and finally as a U.S. senator from New York in the ’50s. A champion of liberal politics and a fighter of crime and corruption throughout his career, Lehman resisted McCarthyism and, as a devotee to his faith, later involved himself in Jewish charities.

Many artifacts in the Lehman suite—a Kiddush cup, Torah scrolls, and pictures with Albert Einstein and Harry Truman—point to these aspects of the politico’s life.

As for the authenticity of the room, Woodsworth calls it somewhat “alleged.” “That couch in the back would not come out of that time period,” he said with a chuckle, gesturing to a striped, slightly anachronistic sofa in the office.

“Students are very much in awe of the room at first,” Woodsworth said of the experience of having section in the room, adding that he, too, feels a special connection.