The Rotunda
Frontispiece to Views of the Public Buildings in the City of New York 1827.
General information
LocationManhattan, New York City
Opened1818
Demolished1870
Map published in 1853 showing City Hall Park with The Rotunda at bottom right

The Rotunda was a building that stood in City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan, New York City, from 1818 to 1870.[1]

History

The Rotunda was built at the initiative of American artist John Vanderlyn to display panoramic paintings. According to historians Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Vanderlyn was motivated by the refusal of the city's cultural elite to include paintings such as his nude Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos[2] in public exhibitions on the grounds that it was an affront to public decency.[3] Backed by John Jacob Astor and other wealthy New Yorkers, he built The Rotunda. Widely regarded as the city's first art museum,[4][5][1] it operated on a commercial footing.[3]

The building was designed on the model of The Pantheon in Rome. It was fifty-six feet (17 m) in diameter, crowned with a thirty-foot (9.1 m) dome.[3]

Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles (1818-19), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

The Rotunda opened in 1818 to display Vanderlyn's Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles,[3] a cyclorama now on display in a purpose-built, circular room in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City.[6] In the painting, to the right of the Latona Fountain, Vanderlyn painted himself pointing towards Czar Alexander I of Russia and King Frederick William III of Prussia.[6]

Plaque donated to the City of NEW YORK BY ASCE in MAY 1981.

In time its use changed to housing government agencies, and the building was altered accordingly.[4][1] On November 5, 1852, in the offices of the Croton Aqueduct Department, the American Society of Civil Engineers and Architects was founded.[5] The society held meetings at this location from 1853 to 1855.[7]

Today, a bronze plaque inside the park marks the site of the Rotunda.[5]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Hall, Edward Hagaman (1910). "A Brief History of City Hall Park, New York". Fifteenth Annual Report of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. Albany. pp. 397–98.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ↑ Vanderlyn, John. "Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos". Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved April 28, 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. Oxford University Press. 1998. p. 468. ISBN 0195116348.
  4. 1 2 "Parks for the New Metropolis (1811–1870)". nycgovparks.org. New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 "Civil Engineers Plaque". nycgovparks.org. New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  6. 1 2 "Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles". metmuseum.org. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  7. ↑ Anon. "Former ASCE Headquarters". American Society of Civil Engineers. Retrieved 5 November 2020.

Further reading

40°42′47.2″N 74°0′16.1″W / 40.713111°N 74.004472°W / 40.713111; -74.004472

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