In 1936, board members and administrators began planning for a new building to serve as a dormitory, infirmary, and boiler room. The project was to be supported with funds from the Works Progress Association (WPA), and construction began in 1937. Along the way, changes were made to the original plan; when the new building opened in 1938, Middle School classrooms and faculty apartments filled the space. In November 1942, the new building was officially named for John Miller Turpin Finney, a world-renowned surgeon who served on McDonogh’s Board of Trustees for 41 years, 21 of which he was President.
During its lifetime, the Finney Building interior was reworked, repaired, repainted, and repurposed more than any other building on campus. English teacher Jon Aaron ‘72, who taught in Finney for 44 years, was quoted in a 2020 McDonogh Magazine story (page 36) saying, “The program and pedagogy of the Middle School evolved, but the basic footprint of Finney did not. We pushed the skin of that building so far out that it nearly burst. In a way, it actually did because by 2019, middle schoolers were attending classes in Finney, Naylor, Keelty, Allan, and Lyle. For as long as it possibly could, Finney Building bent to the will of a school that was continually changing, never static.”
Finney Building was demolished in the fall of 2019 to make way for the Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Middle School Building. In order to continue to honor Dr. Finney’s contributions to the School, the Senior Quad was refurbished and renamed the Finney Senior Quad.
