List of City College of New York people

Nobel laureates

• Julius Axelrod 1933 - Nobel laureate in Medicine, 1970
• Kenneth Arrow 1940 - Nobel laureate in Economics, 1972
• Robert J. Aumann 1950 - Nobel laureate in Economics, 2005
• Herbert Hauptman 1937 - Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1965
• Robert Hofstadter 1935 - Nobel laureate in Physics, 1961
• Jerome Karle 1937 - Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1985
• Henry Kissinger 1923 - winner of Nobel Peace Prize, 1973
• Arthur Kornberg 1937 - Nobel laureate in Medicine, 1959
• Leon M. Lederman 1943 - Nobel laureate in Physics, 1988
• Arno Penzias 1954 - Nobel laureate in Physics, 1978
• Julian Schwinger - Nobel laureate in Physics, 1965
• John O'Keefe - Nobel laureate in Medicine, 2014

  Graduates of Business School (which became Baruch College in 1968)

• William F. Aldinger III 1969 – Chairman and CEO, HSBC North America Holdings
• Abraham Beame 1928 – Mayor of New York City
• Akis Cleanthous – former Minister of Education and Culture, Cyprus
• Monte Conner 1986 – Senior Vice President of Roadrunner Records, A&R Department
• Michael Grimm – member of United States House of Representatives for New York's 13th congressional district
• Sidney Harman 1939 – founder and executive chairman of Harman Kardon; owner of Newsweek
• Ralph Lauren – fashion designer, Polo
• Carlos D. Ramirez – publisher of El Diario La Prensa
• Carl Spielvogel BBA 1957 – former U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia
• Craig A. Stanley – member of New Jersey General Assembly, 1996-2008
• George Weissman BBA 1939 – former CEO, Philip Morris International
• Larry Zicklin 1957 – former Chairman, Neuberger Berman

  Politics, history, government, sociology, philosophy, and religion

• Herman Badillo 1951 – Congressman and Chairman of CUNY's Board of Trustees
• Bernard M. Baruch 1889 – Wall Street financier and adviser to American Presidents; author of the Baruch Plan
• Max Beauvoir 1958 – Haitian Vodou priest and Supreme Chief
• Daniel Bell 1939 – sociologist, professor at Harvard University
• Abraham D. Beame 1928 – mayor of New York City, 1974 to 1977
• Stephen Bronner – political theorist, Marxist, professor at Rutgers University
• Frank Caplan – educator, founder of children's educational toy company Creative Playthings
• Upendra J. Chivukula – first Asian American elected to the New Jersey General Assembly
• Henry Cohen 1943 – Director, Föhrenwald DP Camp; Founding Dean of the Milano School for Management and Urban Policy at The New School
• Morris Raphael Cohen – graduate of CCNY and professor at CCNY; philosopher, lawyer, and legal scholar; namesake of the Cohen Library at CCNY
• Marty Dolin – former Manitoba NDP MLA for Kildonan
• Philip Elman – Justice Department attorney and Federal Trade Commission member, wrote government's brief in Brown v. Board of Education
• Benjamin B. Ferencz – international jurist and criminal justice pioneer; co-winner of the 2009 Erasmus Prize
• Louis Finkelstein – Conservative Jewish theologian
• Abraham Foxman – National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
• Felix Frankfurter 1902 – Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
• George Friedman – founder of Stratfor, author, professor of Political Science, security and defense analyst
• Nathan Glazer – sociologist, professor at Harvard University; author of Beyond the Melting Pot with Daniel Patrick Moynihan
• Steven Goldberg – president of the sociology department of CCNY
• Paul Goodman – writer, social critic, public intellectual; author of The Empire City, Growing Up Absurd, and Communitas
• Edmund W. Gordon – founding Director of the Institute for Research on African Diaspora in the Americas and Caribbean at CCNY
• Stanley Graze – economist and former lecturer at CCNY; worked in the United Nations, State Department, US Army and the Brookings Institution; MA from Columbia University
• Sidney Hook 1923 – writer and philosopher
• Benjamin Kaplan 1929 – helped write the indictments of Nazi war criminals who were tried at Nuremberg; served as Nuremberg prosecutor; distinguished Harvard law professor
• Henry Kissinger – Secretary of State under Richard Nixon
• Ed Koch 1945 – mayor of New York City, 1978 to 1989
• Irving Kristol 1940 – neoconservative intellectual, professor at New York University
• David Landes 1942 – historian, professor at Harvard University
• Melvin J. Lasky 1938 – anti-communist, editor of Encounter 1958 to 1991
• Albert L. Lewis – conservative rabbi, president of international Rabbinical Assembly
• Samuel A. Lewis – politician and philanthropist in the late 19th century; a trustee of the college
• Guillermo Linares 1975 – the first Dominican-American New York City Council Member
• Seymour Martin Lipset – political sociology, trade unions
• Deborah Lipstadt 1969 - historian; combatted Holocaust denial
• Rachel Lloyd – applied urban anthropology graduate; founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services in New York
• Joseph Lookstein - Rabbi and President of Bar-Ilan University
• Jay Lovestone 1918 – radical political leader and trade union functionary
• Richard Lowitt - historian, Guggenheim Fellow.
• Sidney Morgenbesser – philosopher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, known to have witheringly applied Jewish humor to issues in metaphysics and epistemology
• Henry Morgenthau, Sr. – financier and diplomat; as ambassador to Ottoman Empire attempted to warn the world about the Armenian genocide
• Daniel Patrick Moynihan – spent a year at CCNY before he was drafted; author of Beyond the Melting Pot with Nathan Glazer; ambassador to the U.N.; senator representing New York
• Massimo Pigliucci – scientist and philosopher
• Colin L. Powell 1961– U.S. Secretary of State, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Army General, National Security Advisor
• Donald A. Ritchie 1967 – historian, currently historian of the United States Senate
• Alexander Rosenberg – Lakatos Award-winning philosopher at Duke University
• Julius Rosenberg – executed for espionage during the Cold War
• Bertrand Russell – invited by the Philosophy Department in 1940 to become a professor but his appointment was blocked by a suit and timidity on the part of the Board of Higher Education; see the Bertrand Russell Case
• Bernice Sandler, the 'Godmother of Title IX'
• Oscar Schachter 1936 – law professor and United Nations aide
• George D. Schwab 1954 – political scientist, editor and academic, president of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy
• Henry Schwarzschild – founder of NCADP, LCDC, and head of ACLU's Capital Punishment project in America
• Allen G. Schwartz – U.S. federal judge
• Morrie Schwartz – sociologist, author, and subject of Tuesdays with Morrie
• Assata Shakur – civil rights activist; involved in May 1973 shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in which a state trooper was killed
• Stanley S. Surrey 1929 – tax law scholar, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy from 1961 to 1969
• Samuel Turk – rabbi, religious leader, columnist
• Friedrich Ulfers 1959 – Deconstructionist writer, Dean of Media and Communications at European Graduate School, and NYU professor
• Robert F. Wagner, Sr. – U.S. Senator from New York, 1927 to 1949; introduced the National Labor Relations Act
• Michele Wallace 1975 – major figure in African-American studies, feminist studies and cultural studies
• General Alexander S. Webb – second president of the college; winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism at the Battle of Gettysburg
• Melvyn Weiss, attorney who co-founded the plaintiff class action law firm Milberg Weiss.
• Stephen Samuel Wise 1891 – Reform rabbi, early Zionist and social justice activist
• Bertram D. Wolfe 1916 – political activist and historian

  Psychology

• Solomon Asch 1928 – psychologist, known for the Asch conformity experiments
• Morton Bard – psychologist, trailblazer in crisis intervention and author of The Crime Victim's Book
• Isidor Chein 1932 – minority group identification, co-wrote amicus curiae brief in Brown v. Board of Education
• Kenneth Clark – CCNY professor who studied attitudes toward race and testified at Brown v. Board of Education
• Jacob Cohen – psychologist and statistician, developed the coefficient kappa to assess the reliability of ratings of discrete categories of behavior ; expert on factor analysis and regression analysis
• Morton Deutsch – social psychology, conflict resolution
• Leonard Eron – expert on the development of aggression
• Leon Festinger 1939 – social psychologist. Pioneered experimental social psychology, the theory of cognitive dissonance
• Robert Glaser – educational psychology
• Henry Gleitman – cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics
• Arno Gruen – psychologist and psychoanalyst
• Richard Herrnstein – quantitative analysis of behavior; co-author of The Bell Curve; Harvard professor
• Frederick Irving Herzberg – two-factor theory of job satisfaction
• Richard Lazarus – emotion, stress, and coping
• Abraham Maslow – psychologist, known of Maslow's hierarchy of needs
• Walter Mischel – social and personality psychology
• Gardner Murphy – professor of psychology at City College
• Charles Nemeroff - Chair of psychiatry at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
• Irvin Rock 1947; MA 1948 – professor of psychology at Berkeley. Leading researcher on perception.
• David Streiner 1963 - psychologist, researcher and author
• Hans Strupp – expert in psychotherapy research

  The arts

• Woody Allen
• Maurice Ashley 1993 – first African American International Chess Grandmaster
• Jeff Barry – singer/songwriter; wrote with his wife Ellie Greenwich many hit songs, including "Be My Baby" and "Baby, I Love You"
• Seymour Boardman – New York abstract expressionist
• Joshua Brand – Emmy Award-winning writer, director, and producer
• Eddie Carmel, born Oded Ha-Carmeili - Israeli-born entertainer with gigantism and acromegaly, popularly known as "The Jewish Giant"
• Paddy Chayefsky 1943 – playwright and screenwriter; wrote Marty, The Hospital, Network, and Altered States
• Shirley Clarke – independent filmmaker
• Madeleine Cosman – author of medieval cookbook
• Julie Dash – filmmaker best known for Daughters of the Dust
• Edward Eliscu – songwriter; screenwriter; actor; wrote lyrics for "Carioca", inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame
• Victor Ganz – collector of contemporary art in the 20th century
• Davidson Garrett – poet; actor; New York City yellow taxi cab driver; known for his book King Lear of the Taxi: Musings of a New York City Actor/Taxi Driver
• Ira Gershwin 1918 – lyricist; collaborator with his brother George Gershwin, and with Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill, and Harold Arlen
• William Gibson 1938 – playwright, The Miracle Worker
• Marv Goldberg 1964 – music historian in the field of rhythm & blues
• Hazelle Goodman 1986 – stage, screen and TV actress
• Bill Graham - music promoter
• Allen J. Grubman – entertainment lawyer
• Arthur Guiterman – humorous poet
• Luis Guzmán – actor
• E.Y. "Yip" Harburg 1918 – lyricist, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?," The Wizard of Oz, Finian's Rainbow
• Caroline Hirsch – founder of the comedy club Caroline's
• Judd Hirsch 1960 – actor
• Sam Jaffe 1912 – actor, teacher, musician, and engineer
• Dayal Kaur Khalsa 1963 – author of children's books
• Arthur Knight 1940 – movie critic, historian, teacher and TV host
• Stanley Kubrick 1946 – film director
• Mordecai Lawner – actor
• Ernest Lehman BS 1937 – screenwriter
• David Maurice Levett – composer and music teacher
• Hal Linden – actor, musician
• Frank Loesser – songwriter; Tin Pan Alley, stage and films; wrote music and lyrics of "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" and the music of Guys and Dolls, etc.
• Donald Madden – stage, television, and screen actor
• David Margulies – actor
• Ernest Martin – theatre director and manager
• Jackie Mason – comedian and actor
• Jerry Masucci – founder of Fania Records
• Radley Metzger – filmmaker and film distributor
• Andy Mineo – rapper, singer, producer, director, actor and minister
• Sterling Morrison 1970 – musician, co-founder of The Velvet Underground
• Zero Mostel 1935 – actor
• Stanley Nelson 1976 – documentary filmmaker
• Abraham Polonsky 1932 – screenwriter, director of Force of Evil
• George Ranalli 1946 – architect and dean, Spitzer School of Architecture of The City College of New York
• Adrienne Rich – feminist poet and essayist; taught at CCNY from 1968 to 1979
• Faith Ringgold – artist known for her painted story quilts
• Edward G. Robinson 1914 – actor
• Judith Rossner – novelist; author of Looking for Mr. Goodbar and August; attended 1952-1955.
• Mickey Rourke – actor; never officially attended, but began auditing Sandra Seacat's acting class in 1975, making what is generally referred to as his stage debut at CCNY in May of that year
• Chris Rush 1968 – stand-up comedian
• Robert Russin – sculptor
• Richard Schiff 1983 – Emmy Award-winning actor; star of The West Wing
• Sandra Seacat 1970s – actor, director and acting coach, taught acting at City College
• Ben Shahn – artist
• Dan Shor – actor
• Gabourey Sidibe – actress, majored in psychology
• Russell Simmons – rap mogul
• Hrvoje Slovenc – photographer
• Erik Sommer - contemporary artist
• Alfred Stieglitz 1884 – photographer
• Ed Summerlin – tenor saxophonist, composer and arranger; directed CCNY's jazz program 1971-1989
• Roy Turk – songwriter; member of the Songwriters' Hall of Fame; wrote lyrics of standards including "Mean To Me," "I'll Get By," "Walkin' My Baby Back Home," and others
• Vagabon - multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and producer; graduated from Grove School of Engineering
• J. Buzz Von Ornsteiner – forensic psychologist; television personality
• Eli Wallach MA 1938 – actor
• Dirk Weiler – singer and actor
• Cornel Wilde 1935 – actor

  Literature and journalism

• Alan Abelson 1942 – columnist, former editor, Barron's
• Marc D. Angel MA – rabbinic leader, published author
• Maurice Ashley 1988 – chess grandmaster, chess promoter, and author
• Toni Cade Bambara
• Helen Boyd 1995 – writer, speaker, and educator on gender and transgender theory
• Lawrence Bush – author and editor of Jewish Currents
• Barbara Christian
• Dan Daniel 1910 – dean of American sportswriters
• Reuben Fine 1932 – chess grandmaster, psychologist, and author
• Davidson Garrett 1988 - American poet
• Floriana Garo 1987 – Albanian television presenter and model
• Rebecca Newberger Goldstein – novelist, philosopher, MacArthur Fellow
• Vivian Gornick – writer, memoirist, feminist, professor; author of Fierce Attachments
• Clyde Haberman 1966 – New York Times reporter and columnist
• Safiya Henderson-Holmes MFA – Poet, winner of the 1990 William Carlos Williams Award
• Oscar Hijuelos 1975 – won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
• Hy Hollinger – entertainment trade journalist, reporter and editor for Variety, international editor of The Hollywood Reporter
• Irving Howe 1940 – author of World of Our Fathers, literary critic, coined the phrase "New York Jewish Intellectual"
• John Johnson BA 1961, MA 1963 - journalist and television news correspondent/anchor
• June Jordan
• Bernard Kalb 1951 – journalist and television news correspondent
• Marvin Kalb 1951 – journalist and television news correspondent
• David Karp 1948 – novelist and television writer
• Alfred Kazin – author of A Walker in the City, literary critic
• Marvin Kitman 1953 – television critic, humorist, and author
• Jack Kroll 1937 – culture editor, Newsweek
• Joseph P. Lash 1931 – Pulitzer Prize for Biography winner, author of Eleanor and Franklin
• Harvey Leonard 1970 – meteorologist, broadcast journalist, and TV personality
• Paul Levinson – author of The Plot to Save Socrates and The Silk Code
• Oscar Lewis 1936 – anthropologist, author, and professor
• Douglas Light 2003 – novelist, screenwriter, short story writer
• Audre Lorde
• Bernard Malamud BA 1936 – author ; author of The Assistant
• Henry Miller Attended one semester. Author of Tropic of Cancer.
• Ralph Morse – career photographer for LIFE magazine; youngest war correspondent in World War II; recipient of the 1995 Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award, the highest honor in photojournalism
• Montrose Jonas Moses 1899 – author
• Walter Mosley 1991 – best-selling author whose novels about private eye Easy Rawlins have received Edgar and Golden Dagger Awards
• Larry Neal
• Michael Oreskes 1975 - former senior vice president for news at NPR
• Mario Puzo – best-selling novelist; screenwriter, The Godfather
• Ernesto Quiñonez BA, MA 1996 – national bestselling author of Bodega Dreams
• Robert Rosen 1BA, MA 974 – author of the best-selling biography
• A.M. Rosenthal 1949 – former executive editor of The New York Times
• Henry Roth 1928 – novelist, author of Call It Sleep
• Miriam Roth – Israeli writer and scholar of children's books; kindergarten teacher; educator
• Robert Scheer – journalist
• Daniel Schorr 1939 – journalist, veteran newscaster and commentator for CBS, CNN, and NPR
• Stephen Shepard 1961 – editor in chief, Business Week
• Anatole Shub – editor and journalist specializing in Eastern European matters
• Upton Sinclair BA 1897 – author,The Jungle
• Robert Sobel BSS 1951, MA 1952 – best-selling author of business histories
• Stephen Somerstein BA 1966 - Took iconic photographs of the Civil Rights Movement
• Earl Ubell 1948 – print, TV and radio journalist specializing in science and health reporting
• Elsie B. Washington – author of the 1980 book Entwined Destinies, considered the first romance novel featuring African American characters written by an African American author
• Gary Weiss 1975 – investigative journalist, author
• Rajzel Żychlińsky - Yiddish-language poet

  Science and technology

• Edward I. Altman 1963 – Max L. Heine Professor of Finance at the NYU Stern School of Business and the Academic leader in the study of High-Yield Bond and Distressed Debt Markets and Credit Risk Management
• Solomon A. Berson 1938 – medical scientist at Mt. Sinai Hospital who would probably have won a Nobel with his colleague Rosalyn Yalow had he not died prematurely
• Julius Blank – engineer, member of the "Traitorous Eight" who founded Silicon Valley
• Burrill Bernard Crohn 1902 - Gastroenterologist; known for disease named after him
• Charles DeLisi BA 1963 – scientist, "Father of the Human Genome Project"
• Milton Diamond 1955 – sexologist and professor of anatomy and reproductive biology
• Jesse Douglas 1916 – mathematician; one of two winners of the first Fields Medal awarded in 1936
• Joel S. Engel 1957 – scientist and electrical engineer instrumental in mobile phone technology
• Adin Falkoff – engineer, computer scientist, co-inventor of the APL language interactive system
• Mitchell Feigenbaum 1964 – mathematical physicist
• Richard Felder 1962 – engineering professor, co-author of Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes
• Jeffrey Scott Flier 1969 – Dean of Harvard Medical School
• Michael Freeman BS 1969 - inventor
• Alfred Gessow 1943 – Pioneering helicopter aerodynamicist at NACA/NASA, and professor at University of Maryland
• Wolcott Gibbs – distinguished chemistry professor at the Free Academy
• Seymour Ginsburg 1948 – distinguished computer science professor
• Richard D. Gitlin 1964 – engineer, co-invention of DSL Bell Labs
• George Washington Goethals 1887 – civil engineer, supervised the construction and opening of the Panama Canal
• Joseph Goldberger – started in engineering; transferred to Bellevue Hospital Medical School; discovered that B vitamin deficiency was cause of pellagra; paved way for Elvehjem to narrow cause to vitamin B₃
• Dan Goldin – 9th and longest-tenured administrator of NASA
• Andrew S. Grove ChE. 1960 – founder and former Chairman of Intel Corp; donated $26 million, the largest gift ever received by the college
• Gary Gruber 1962 – physicist, testing expert, educator, author
• Herman Hollerith – early computer pioneer, invented Key punch
• Robert E. Kahn – Internet pioneer, co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol, co-recipient of the Turing Award in 2004
• Michio Kaku – CCNY professor; theoretical physicist and co-founder of string field theory
• Harvey Kaylie 1960 - Mini-Circuits, RF and microwave components company founder
• Gary A. Klein 1964 – research psychologist, known for pioneering the field of naturalistic decision making
• Leonard Kleinrock 1957 – Internet pioneer
• Edward Kravitz 1954 - Neurobiologist
• Solomon Kullback – mathematician; NSA cryptology pioneer
• Arthur J. Levenson – Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army; National Security Agency official; cryptographer; mathematician
• Valentino Mazzia – forensic anesthesiologist
• Albert Medwin BSEE 1949 – engineer and inventor, developed CMOS integrated circuit technology
• David Michaels 1976 – epidemiologist and Occupational Safety and Health Administration administrator
• Irving Millman 1948 – microbiologist and virologist
• Lewis Mumford – historian of technology; author of The City in History
• Karl J. Niklas – professor of plant biology at Cornell University
• John O'Keefe – neuroscientist
• Paul Pimsleur – professor, applied linguist, inventor of the Pimsleur language learning system
• Charles Lane Poor – astronomer
• Martin Pope 1939 – physical chemist; 2006 Davy Medal winner; known for pioneering work in electronic process in organic crystals and polymers, particularly discoveries in area of ohmic contacts
• Emil Leon Post – distinguished mathematician and professor of mathematics at CCNY
• George Edward Post – BA in 1854, MA in 1857, and later MD in 1860, professor of surgery at the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut, now the American University of Beirut.
• Jacob Rabinow – engineer; inventor; held 230 U.S. patents on a variety of mechanical, optical and electrical devices
• Maurice M. Rapport 1940 – biochemist; identified the neurotransmitter serotonin
• Saul Rosen 1941 BS Mathematics – early computer pioneer, mathematician, engineer, and professor
• Jack Ruina 1944 BSEE – former director of ARPA
• Mario Runco Jr. 1974 – astronaut
• Jonas Salk 1934 – inventor of the Salk vaccine

• Philip H. Sechzer 1934 – anesthesiologist; pioneer in pain management; inventor of patient-controlled analgesia
• Abraham Sinkov – mathematician; National Security Agency cryptology pioneer
• David L. Spector – biology; professor and Director of Research, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
• David B. Steinman 1906 – engineer; bridge designer; designed the Mackinac Bridge; founded the National Society of Professional Engineers; namesake of the CCNY engineering building
• Leonard Susskind 1962 – physicist, string theory
• Joseph F. Traub 1954 – computer scientist, mathematician
• Edgar Villchur BA, MS 1940 – inventor, educator, writer, founder of Acoustic Research
• Mark Zemansky 1921 – physicist; textbook author; Professor of Physics at City College of New York from 1925 until he became an Emeritus Professor of Physics in 1967
• Benjamin W. Zweifach 1931 – Professor Emeritus Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego

  Business

• Sheldon Adelson - businessman and Republican donor. Attended City College but dropped out before graduating
• Frank Avellino 1958 – accountant involved in the Madoff investment scandal
• Edward Blank – industrialist and pioneer in the telemarketing industry, founder of Edward Blank Associates, and the United Nations representative for the Jewish National Fund
• Miles Cahn – co-founder of Coach, Inc.
• Millard Drexler – chairman and CEO of J.Crew Group; former CEO of Gap Inc
• Jerald G. Fishman – Chief Executive Officer and President of Analog Devices since November 1996
• Andrew Grove 1960 – 4th employee of Intel, and eventually its president, CEO, and chairman, and Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1997, who donated $26,000,000 to CCNY's Grove School of Engineering in 2005.
• Joseph Gurwin – philanthropist who dropped out after becoming a partner in a textile firm; "realized I was making more money than my professors"
• Stanley H. Kaplan 1939 – founded Kaplan Educational Services
• Nat Lefkowitz - co-chairman of the William Morris Agency
• Jean Nidetch – founded Weight Watchers
• Jack Rudin 1941 – real estate developer
• Herbert Simon B.B.A. – real estate developer, co-founder of Simon Property Group, owner of the Indiana Pacers NBA basketball team
• Melvin Simon 1949 – real estate developer, co-founder of Simon Property Group
• Bernard Spitzer 1943 – real estate developer
• Linda Kaplan Thaler 1972 – CEO of ad agency in New York; brought us the Aflac Duck

  Sports

• Albert Axelrod, Olympic medalist foil fencer
• Daniel Bukantz, Olympic fencer
• Abram Cohen, Olympic fencer
• Irwin Dambrot – basketball player involved in the CCNY Point Shaving Scandal
• Phil Farbman - basketball player
• Nat Fleischer - Founder and editor of Ring magazine. Authority on boxing.
• Heather Foster – Jamaican-born American professional bodybuilder
• Benny Friedman – University of Michigan and College and NFL Hall of Fame football quarterback, coached the CCNY football team from 1935 to 1941
• Harold Goldsmith 1952 – foil and épée fencer, won the 1952 NCAA foil championship, competed in three Olympiads for the US, won two Pan American Games gold medals and two silver medals
• Sidney Hertzberg – former NY Knicks basketball player
• Nat Holman - Hall of Fame basketball player and CCNY coach
• Red Holzman 1942 – All-American guard at CCNY; two-time All-Star NBA guard; basketball coach for the New York Knicks; Hall of Famer
• Jane Katz - Olympic swimmer
• Floyd Layne – basketball player involved in the CCNY Point Shaving Scandal; later coached the CCNY men's basketball team
• Bennet Nathaniel "Nate" Lubell -- Olympic fencer
• Nat Militzok – basketball player for the New York Knicks
• Saul Rogovin - Major League Baseball pitcher; 1951 AL ERA leader
• Hank Rosenstein – basketball player for the New York Knicks
• Barney Sedran – Member of the Basketball Hall of Fame
• Moe Spahn – basketball player
• James Strauch - Olympic fencer
• Fred Thompson Hall of Fame Track and Field Coach
• Henry Wittenberg – Olympic wrestler; won gold medal at 1948 Olympics and silver medal in 1952

  Other

• Leon M. Goldstein, President of Kingsborough Community College, and acting Chancellor of the City University of New York
• Raymond Lisle, attorney, officer in the US Foreign Service, and Dean of Brooklyn Law School

  Fictional

• Lennie Briscoe – character from the TV show Law & Order
• Brian Flanagan – character from the 1988 film Cocktail
• Gordon Gekko – character from the 1987 film Wall Street
• Nancy – character from the 1971 film Bananas
• Sam Posner – character from the 1988 film Crossing Delancey
• Don Draper – character from the TV show Mad Men
• Toby Ziegler – character from the TV show The West Wing