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Founder's Hall was the first building built on the campus of
Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classif ...
at 66th Street and
York Avenue York Avenue and Sutton Place are the names of a relatively short north-south thoroughfare in the Yorkville, Lenox Hill, and Sutton Place neighborhoods of the East Side of Manhattan, in New York City. York Avenue runs from 59th to 92nd Streets ...
, in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Built between 1903 and 1906, it represents an instance of one of John D. Rockefeller's largest scale efforts at
philanthropy Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...
, and housed the nation's first major biomedical research laboratory. Construction costs for Founders, which included an Animal housing facility and a powerhouse were $276,000. It was declared a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places liste ...
in 1974. The building is now mainly used for school offices.


Description and history

Founder's Hall is located near the center of the campus of Rockefeller University on Manhattan's
Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the we ...
, between the end of 66th Street and
FDR Drive The Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive, commonly called the FDR Drive for short, is a limited-access parkway on the east side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It starts near South and Broad Streets, just north of the Battery Par ...
. It is a steel-framed five story building, its exterior finished in gray brick with limestone trim. It has Classical Revival styling, with broad pilasters separating groups of window bays, and an entrance with a portico supported by Ionic columns. It was built in 1903 to a design by the architectural form
Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge was a successful architecture firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, operating between 1886 and 1915, with extensive commissions in monumental civic, religious, and collegiate architecture in the spirit and style of Henry ...
. John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) amassed one of the greatest fortunes of the late 19th century in the oil business, from which he retired in 1897. His efforts at philanthropy were formally guided from 1891 by Frederick T. Gates, a Baptist minister who had previously (1889) recommended to Rockefeller that he establish the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
. Much of Rockefeller's early philanthropy was on a comparatively small scale, and it was soon clear that larger-scale endeavors needed to be organized to properly guide his charitable giving. Gates suggested to Rockefeller that he establish a medical research institute that would be on a par with major European institutions of the period. In June 1902, Rockefeller made a commitment of $1 million to establish such an institute. In 1903 he purchased the former Schermerhorn estate, which is now the university's core campus. Founder's Hall was one of the first three buildings on the campus, housing its principal research laboratories.


See also

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List of National Historic Landmarks in New York City This article lists National Historic Landmarks in New York City, of which there are 116. One of the New York City sites is also a national monument, and there are two more national monuments in NYC as well. These are listed further below. It a ...
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National Register of Historic Places listings in Manhattan from 59th to 110th Streets This is intended to be a complete list of properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places between 59th and 110th Streets in Manhattan. For properties and districts in other parts of Manhattan and the other islands of ...


References

{{National Register of Historic Places in New York National Historic Landmarks in Manhattan School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan School buildings completed in 1906 University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Rockefeller University Upper East Side 1906 establishments in New York City