Back to the Future: The Academy’s History
A pitiless creditor, arson, and rivalry between medical schools: All play a role in the history of the Academy’s real estate. Learn about the Academy’s history, dating back to 1817.
Published July 1, 2006
By Simon Baatz
Academy Contributor
In a pleasant twist of fate, its move Downtown returns The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy) to a location just blocks away from where it was founded nearly 200 years ago. On January 29, 1817, a group of 21 men, almost all recent graduates or professors of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, met for the first time in a room of that institution, then located on Barclay Street near Broadway, close to City Hall.
Known (until 1876) as the Lyceum of Natural History, the group was open to anyone with an interest in natural knowledge. By contrast, the two leading scientific societies of the prior century, Philadelphia’s American Philosophical Society and Boston’s American Academy of Arts and Sciences, were limited to the socially prominent.
A Link to the Medical School
The Lyceum’s link to a medical school was no coincidence: In the early 19th century, science was not part of the college curriculum and there was no career structure for science per se, so medicine was the logical profession for young men with scientific curiosity.
With the aim of hosting public lectures on science and establishing a museum of natural history, the Lyceum needed more capacious quarters, a situation that sounds familiar today. And so, in April 1817, the Lyceum moved to a set of rooms in the New York Institution on the south side of Chambers Street directly opposite City Hall. The New York Institution was a cultural and intellectual mecca; the three-story building, on loan to New York’s literary societies from the City, housed the New York Historical Society, the New York Literary and Philosophical Society, the American Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Lyceum of Natural History.
Rapid Expansion
The Lyceum of Natural History was able to take good advantage of the City’s generosity; over the next two decades, the membership and activities of the society expanded rapidly. The growth of the Lyceum caused the members to imagine that they might own their own building, thus ending their dependence on a loan that could be revoked at any moment. In 1831 the Lyceum did eventually move from the New York Institution into a temporary home provided by the New York Dispensary at the corner of White and Centre Streets. But this also was unsatisfactory and in 1834 the members initiated a subscription campaign to raise the funds to construct a new building.
Their efforts seemed successful; two years later the Lyceum moved into its handsome new home on Broadway between Houston and Prince Streets. It was a notable accomplishment for scientific endeavor in New York City. There was a large lecture room on the first floor and on the second floor, a spacious gallery for the Lyceum’s collections in natural history. The members set aside rooms for a library at the rear of the building and several small meeting rooms on the third floor.
But it was all too good to last. To buy the land and build, the Lyceum incurred debt, hoping to pay it off through ongoing donations. Then came the severe economic recession of 1837. That stalled fund-raising and soon the Lyceum had to take on more debt, for a total of $35,000. The members struggled valiantly to hold onto their building but to no avail; a creditor threatened legal action and in 1843 the Lyceum sold its home at auction for $37,000.
A Serious Blow
The loss of the Broadway building was a serious blow. For a while, a small group of dispirited devotees met in the home of the Lyceum’s president. But then the Lyceum found shelter under the wing of a successful upstart, the newly founded medical school at New York University. That school felt that a tie to the Lyceum would bring it prestige in its competition with the well-established College of Physicians and Surgeons, later to be part of Columbia University.
Less than a year after their own building was sold, the Lyceum, along with its magnificent natural history collection and its superb library of books, moved to the NYU medical school’s home at the Stuyvesant Institute on Broadway between Bleecker and Bond Streets. In 1851 the Lyceum moved with the medical school to a new building on the outskirts of the city at 14th Street close to Third Avenue.
But 15 years later, disaster struck. The NYU medical school was adjacent to the Academy of Music, a large opera house on the corner of 14th Street. On the night of Monday, May 21, 1866, an arsonist set a fire to the rear of the Academy of Music. The flames quickly spread and soon the entire block on 14th Street between Irving Place and Third Avenue was ablaze.
The NYU medical school, along with the Mott Surgical Museum and the collections of the Lyceum of Natural History, burned to the ground despite the best efforts of New York City firemen. A collection of birds donated to the Lyceum by John James Audubon, a mineralogical collection from the New York State Geological Survey, and the ichthyological specimens of Samuel Latham Mitchill, an energetic founder of the Lyceum—all vanished in the flames.
Another Severe Setback
The loss of the Lyceum’s collections was a severe setback to the cause of science in New York; it was not certain that they would ever be replaced. But ironically, the loss cleared the way for the creation of a new institution, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Thanks to the generosity of New York City and State, and of the city’s wealthiest citizens, the AMNH opened on Central Park West in 1874.
Its establishment meant a circumscribed role for the Lyceum of Natural History—it would no longer attempt to rebuild its own museum. But the creation of the AMNH had its blessings; renamed the New York Academy of Sciences, the former Lyceum moved into rooms in the museum’s capacious building on Central Park West and assumed a modest, yet significant, role as a spokesperson for the scientific community in New York City.
In the early decades of the 20th century, the Academy organized a comprehensive survey of the natural history of Puerto Rico, a project that coincided with the research of such notable members as Franz Boas and Nathaniel Lord Britton.
Rising from the Ashes
Courtesy CBRE.
But it was Eunice Miner, a former researcher at the AMNH who was executive secretary of the Academy from 1939 through 1968, who did more than any other member to revitalize the Academy and to secure it a permanent home. In her rounds of New York philanthropists, Miner attracted the attention of Norman Woolworth, scion of the family that owned a network of chain stores. Woolworth was so impressed that, on learning of the Academy’s search for a new home, he donated his own ornate five-story mansion on East 63rd with the sole requirement that the Academy pay all the necessary legal fees.
It was a spectacular gift. The Academy, the oldest science organization in New York City, could now boast a magnificent home—and a permanent measure of independence and self-sufficiency. After many happy years, and after much careful consideration, Academy members voted to sell the mansion in 2005. But in the other whimsical twist of fate, the Academy’s new home looks down upon the magnificent Gothic spire of the landmark Woolworth Building, which housed the Woolworth company for 80 years and is now being converted into residential apartments. And, of course, the proceeds from the sale of the mansion have resulted in an endowment that will be the bulwark of the Academy for years to come, back Downtown.
Also read: Academy’s Past: Where It All Began (11-part series) and Knowledge, Culture and Science in the Metropolis: The New York Academy of Sciences (1817-1970)
About the Author
Simon Baatz, who teaches American history at George Mason University, is the author of Knowledge, Culture, and Science in the Metropolis: The New York Academy of Sciences 1817-1970 (1990). His most recent book, For the Thrill of It: The Murder that Shocked Chicago, a history of the Leopold-Loeb case, will be published by HarperCollins in 2007.
