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 Gould Memorial Library in the Bronx may be the most famous building in New York City that you’ve never heard of. Designed by Stanford White and modeled on the Pantheon, the Gould Memorial Library was the center piece of New York University’s University Heights Campus, located along 184th Street in the Bronx... The Gould Memorial Library commemorated Jay Gould. Helen Gould’s donation to name the library in memory of her father appears to have been an attempt to rehabilitate his public image. Gould was in talks with MacCracken to donate funds to support engineering at NYU, but these plans were unfinalized when Gould died. The grand, opulent, and evocative architecture of the classical past and European culture, would have been suitable for Gould, who was buried in a lavish, Ionic temple in Woodlawn Cemetery, in the Bronx. Together the library and its doors celebrated the lives and achievements of two great, but flawed, men." For more on the Library, check out this profile by Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Gould Memorial Library ca. 1905 The Gould Memorial Library and Hall of Fame are Beaux Arts Landmarks designed by Stanford White in the late 1890s. These structures were part of the undergraduate campus of New York University from 1900-1973. The site is now the campus for Bronx Community College. The library and Hall of Fame were designated City Landmarks in 1966, with the library interior following in 1981. The interior of the library is richly decorated in marble, stone, mosaic, wood and bronze and features Tiffany glass. The Hall of Fame is a colonnade with busts of noted scientists, writers, politicians and many other important American figures.

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).

Stanford White Memorial bronze doors at the Gould Memorial Library.

"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.

University Heights Presbyterian Church, 1938. The University Heights Presbyterian congregation dates to a Sunday school established in 1893, to serve the growing community associated with the New York University campus then under construction. Henry Mitchell MacCracken, the NYU chancellor who led University Heights development, was himself a church minister. Construction on the current sanctuary was completed in 1907, with the first mass said on Christmas Day.

The Gould Memorial Library and Hall of Fame are Beaux Arts Landmarks designed by Stanford White in the late 1890s.

Loring Andrews House, 1938. Built around 1880, this was originally the home of William Loring Andrews, a leather merchant, author, publisher, collector of rare books, and the first librarian of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (of which he was a trustee). According to photographer P.L. Sperr, an 1893 map lists the building as the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital. Today, the house is part of Bronx Community College, having previously been part of New York University. It is named after Henry Mitchell MacCracken, professor of philosophy and the NYU chancellor who oversaw the acquisition and development of the NYU campus at University Heights.

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.

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.

Gould Memorial Library, under construction, ca. 1894. Approaching the turn of the 20th century, New York University had reached the limits of its Greenwich Village campus. Seeking open space with room for grand architectural statements, the school acquired a hilltop site in the West Bronx from the Mali family. The master plan was designed by Stanford White, whose Gould Memorial Library anchors the campus. The Gould Library makes eclectic reference to Classical structures, in particular the Roman Pantheon. White extended the Pantheon concept to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, an arcaded terrace at the rear of the library, featuring bronze busts of notable figures. The library was completed in 1900, becoming the centerpiece of New York University’s West Bronx campus. In 1973, NYU left the University Heights site, selling its buildings to the City University of New York, which later renamed the campus Bronx Community College. Today, the Gould library requires significant structural repairs.