"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.

Between 1954 and 1957, the Municipal Art Society surveyed historic buildings in all five boroughs to create a database of potential landmarks to preserve. Local residents and MAS staff compiled individual sheets devoted to about 200 buildings. Each sheet outlined the building’s date, location, and style and provided a description and a small photograph. This is the list of Bronx buildings with descriptions by architectural historian Agnes A. Gilchrist.

In the closing decades of the 19th century, New York underwent a profound physical and cultural transformation. Fueled by the wealth of the exploding financial and manufacturing sectors, the city rapidly evolved into a world-class metropolis. The bold ambitions of civic and business leaders, architects, and engineers of the era manifested in landmarks such as the vast Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the stately U.S. Custom House, the towering Municipal Building, and the original terminus of New York City’s first official subway line—the ornate City Hall stop. The sweeping interior spaces common to all of these structures, and hundreds of others, depended upon a venerable Mediterranean building technology adapted to contemporary American construction: arched tile ceilings—or vaults—that were not only self-supporting but could also bear the weight of floors or roofs above them. These vaults were designed and built by a single New York firm, founded by Spanish immigrant Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908) and later headed by his son Rafael Jr. (1872-1950). The Guastavinos’ patented system for building domes and vaults involved multiple layers of thin ceramic tiles bonded with quick-drying mortar. The resulting structures were not only exceptionally strong, but also lightweight, easy to build, and inherently beautiful, thanks to intricate patterns of exposed tile that formed finished, decorative surfaces. Guastavino vaults figured prominently in more than 1,000 projects across the nation, including 200 in Manhattan alone. During its 73-year history, the Guastavino Company helped build some of the most impressive interior spaces in America—veritable palaces for the people. This list based on MCNY's exhibition Palaces for the People, contains many of Guastavino's masterpieces in the five boroughs, both those that remain and those that have been lost to the wrecking ball.

Stanford White Memorial bronze doors at the Gould Memorial Library.

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.

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.

A collection of churches across New York City from the New York Public Library.

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.