The college began as the New York State Institute of Applied Arts and Sciences at Buffalo in 1946. A few years after it joined the State University system in 1948, it became Erie County Technical Institute in 1953. In 1960 the college moved to its North Campus location in Williamsville. In 1968 the name was changed to its present designation. The South Campus in Orchard Park opened in 1974. In 1971, the City Campus, housed in the former Bishop O’Hern High School in downtown Buffalo, had already opened, making ECC the first multi-campus college in New York State outside of New York City. In 1981 the city campus was moved to the newly renovated Old Post Office, an architectural landmark, in the center of downtown Buffalo.