By Oscar Zamora Flores, Assistant Archivist, Bronx Community College

This well was just across the street from the Old Croton Aqueduct Gatehouse at Burnside Avenue and Phelan Place.

The fact is that the Hall of Fame is overwhelmingly white and male, with some “great Americans” having to be un-inducted for their racial cruelty. However, Professor Gregory Jost views a reassessment as “a huge opportunity to break open this conversation for how our definitions of success and greatness shift over time, and what stories and histories are worth telling.” While he is not immortalized in bronze in the Hall, the life and work of Richmond Barthé, who sculpted Booker T. Washington’s bust, serves to break open the mold of greatness.

Croton Aqueduct gatehouse, 1897. Built circa 1890, this rock-faced granite gatehouse was constructed to service the second water supply system of New York, the New Croton Aqueduct. This system ran from the New Croton Reservoir in Westchester County to the Jerome Park Reservoir in the Bronx, and from there it distributed water to certain areas of the Bronx and Manhattan. The Aqueduct itself is a 33-mile-long, 13-foot-diameter, brick-lined tunnel that was engineered to move (by gravity) up to 290 million gallons of drinking water each day from Westchester to the Bronx. The gatehouses were constructed to allow for access into the tunnel. In the 1990s the city ceased using Croton water because its quality had increasingly diminished. Between 2006 and 2013 a major overhaul and restoration of the system were undertaken. A new Croton Water Filtration Plant was built, the tunnels were stabilized and cleaned, and the gatehouses were restored. At the completion of the project, the Croton drinking water supply system was reactivated (an important step towards future work on the Delaware Aqueduct, which supplies more than 50 percent of the city’s daily water needs).

"Dedicated in 1900 and designed by Stanford White, the monument was the first hall of fame in the United States. The open-air colonnade with spaces for 102 busts is located at Bronx Community College (BCC), formally home to New York University’s University Heights campus... While it is easy to dismiss the monument as outdated and identify its problematic honorees, the process through which people were elected make it and the archives documenting the election process and unveiling ceremonies for the busts valuable sources of twentieth-century cultural and political history. Every five years, at least 100 electors chosen by the NYU Senate selected the honorees, who were required to be American citizens who had 'distinguished themselves by their accomplishments in the arts, sciences and other pursuits directed toward the betterment of mankind' and been dead for at least 25 years. The public nominated the names from which the electors chose, however, and from 1900 through the 1970s Americans mounted vocal campaigns for those they found worthy. The slogan 'Every American is a Shareholder in the Hall of Fame' stressed the public nature of the election." For more on the Hall of Fame selection process, check out this article by BCC historian Kate Culkin in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Hall of Fame, New York University ca. 1975 Surrounding this library building is the semicircular open-air colonnade known as the Hall of Fame, in which are displayed busts of famous men. As seen from below, this peculiarly Roman conceit provides an effective setting for the busts that it encloses. McKim, Mead, & White were the architects.

by Alexander Rettie, Assistant Archivist, Bronx Community College Visitors to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans are viewing over a century of deliberations. Discussions between politicians, academics and others–across each U.S. state–landed on the election and installation of the 96 busts we see today. Undisclosed to visitors, however, are the hundreds of names passed over in the search to fill out the colonnade. The Hall of Fame collection has archived nomination letters relating to 500 unique nominees, including the Hall’s current residents. Among the breadth of these nominees are many non-white, non-male Americans that the relatively small of electors deigned unviable. Herein laid the historical stumbling block for the monument’s diversity. The vast majority of inductees happened to match the race, gender, and religion of the 100-or-so electors who selected them.

This water tower was constructed sometime in the late 19th century for Lewis G. Morris. Morris was the descendant of Governeur Morris, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. The tower stood near Burnside and Sedgewick Avenue.

Founded in 1900, The Hall of Fame was the first memorial of its kind in the country, built to honor prominent Americans with a significant impact on this nation’s history. Despite its significance, the Hall can seem at odds with the vibrant community that surrounds it, a relational disparity between the honorees represented and the very diverse student body now attending Bronx Community College (BCC). The story of the Hall Fame illustrates our changing attitudes about the idea of greatness, the racialized divestment of the Bronx, and the beginnings of the modern tension between New York’s large institutions of higher education and their surrounding communities.

Hall of Fame for Great Americans, ca. 1914 The Hall of Fame for Great Americans was the United States’ first hall of fame. It has space for 102 statues, and currently holds 98. The hall was built on a hill that was previously occupied by the British, and triumphantly won back by American soldiers in 1776. The hall itself opened in 1891, as a part of New York University’s Bronx campus, and later became part of Bronx Community College in 1973. A person being commemorated by the Hall of Fame would be one who contributed something significant to American society, in politics, art, science, or technology. In order to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, they were required to be an American citizen, and to have been deceased for at least 25 years. They were then voted in by a committee, and a bronze statue would be commissioned from a sculptor.

Messiah Home for Children, ca. 1910. The Messiah Home was founded in 1885 as a home for orphaned children, or those dependent on working mothers. In 1902, Henry H. Rogers — the philanthropist who underwrote Helen Keller’s Radcliffe education — donated land for the construction of a new facility. The new building, a Jacobethan Revival design by Boston architect Charles Brigham was constructed between 1905 and 1908. However, the Messiah Home soon moved operations to Spring Valley in upstate New York. The Brigham building was sold to the Salvation Army in 1920. Since 1975, it has been owned by the City of New York.

FDNY Engine 43, 1998 Seagrave truck.

by Alexander Rettie, Assistant Archivist, Bronx Community College Construction began on the Hall of Fame for Great Americans less than a decade after the founding of the University Heights campus—at the exact turn of the 20th century. It was one of the first additions performed to the fledgling college. Among all the changes it heralded, the monument and its gallery of figureheads was also the first of its kind in the United States. Older monuments froze their subjects and associated values at the moment of their construction. Such buildings were rarely modified and, as time progressed, they may become an anachronism. The first Hall of Fame aspired to grow alongside America’s changing culture. Despite its dynamism, however, constraints on oversight and funding limited the growth initially imagined for it.

The former Gustav H. Schwab House, New York University campus, 1923. The Schwab House, built in 1857, was not part of NYU’s initial University Heights campus, but acquired in 1908. It later served as the campus infirmary and the school of engineering and science administration. Today it is the Bronx Community College’s South Hall. The Schwab house is built on the site of a former British Revolutionary War fort. “Fort Number Eight” was established in 1776, part of the British fortifications of New York. It was abandoned and destroyed in 1782.

"The Hall of Fame for Great Americans, created in 1900, was the first monument of its kind that sought the active involvement of Americans in nominating their favorite 'Great Americans.' The Hall was conceived of by Dr. Henry Mitchell MacCracken, Chancellor of New York University (NYU), who envisioned a democratic election process for selecting these greats modeled after presidential elections. Nominations came to the election center and after a person received a certain number of votes, an NYU Senate of 100 voters made the final choice. The Senate was composed of American leaders: past American presidents, presidents of colleges, senators, and men of renown in various fields. Problems soon arose, however, when this initial process yielded 29 nominees, all male. The lack of women created a scandal and in the next election, eight women were elected (currently, there are 11 women in the Hall. However, the contentious nomination of Robert E. Lee remained." For more on the Hall of Fame's controversial selection process, check out this article by Cynthia Tobar in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.