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The Rotunda
Frontispiece to Views of the Public Buildings in the City of New York 1827.
General information
Location	Manhattan, New York City
Opened	1818
Demolished	1870

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

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 in public exhibitions on the grounds that it was an affront to public decency. Backed by John Jacob Astor and other wealthy New Yorkers, he built The Rotunda. Widely regarded as the city's first art museum, it operated on a commercial footing.

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.

The Rotunda opened in 1818 to display Vanderlyn's Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles, 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. 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.

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

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

References

1. ^ 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. ^ Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. Oxford University Press. 1998. p. 468. ISBN 0195116348.
4. ^ "Parks for the New Metropolis (1811–1870)". nycgovparks.org. New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
5. ^ "Civil Engineers Plaque". nycgovparks.org. New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
6. ^ "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

• Media related to The Rotunda (New York City) at Wikimedia Commons
• Avery, Kevin J., & Fodera, Peter L. (1988). John Vanderlyn's panoramic view of the palace and gardens of Versailles. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

v t e Civic Center
Manhattan, New York City
Government buildings	1 Police Plaza Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse Home Life Building Jacob K. Javits Federal Building Louis J. Lefkowitz Building Manhattan Municipal Building Metropolitan Correctional Center New York City Hall New York County Courthouse Surrogate's Courthouse Ted Weiss Federal Building Tweed Courthouse Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse United States Court of International Trade
Non-government buildings	Current buildings 5 Beekman Street 8 Spruce Street 49 Chambers 150 Nassau Street 280 Broadway 287 Broadway 375 Pearl Street Hall des Lumieres Ahrens Building Broadway–Chambers Building Firehouse, Engine Company 31 Morse Building New York Times Building Park Row Building Potter Building Rogers Peet Building Southbridge Towers St. Andrew Church Tower 270 Transportation Building Woolworth Building Former Astor House Bridewell City Hall Post Office and Courthouse New York Tribune Building New York World Building Rogers Peet Building Samuel Osgood House St. Joachim's Church The Rotunda Washington Hall
Other spaces	African Burial Ground National Monument City Hall Park Drumgoole Plaza Five Points (former) Foley Square Millennium Park
Education	Pace University 1 Pace Plaza 41 Park Row Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts
Transport	Subway stations Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall/Chambers Street City Hall City Hall (former) Worth Street (former) Streets Broadway Chambers Street Centre Street Lafayette Street Park Row Worth Street
See also: Manhattan Community Board 1

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

• Federal architecture in New York City
• Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan
• Civic Center, Manhattan
• 1817 establishments in New York (state)
• 1870 disestablishments in New York (state)
• Art museums and galleries established in 1818
• Buildings and structures demolished in 1870