New York Crystal Palace
Encyclopedia
Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations
Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations was a World's Fair held in 1853 in New York City, in the wake of the highly successful 1851 Great Exhibition in London. It aimed to showcase the new industrial achievements of the world and also to demonstrate the nationalistic pride of a relatively young...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1853, which was under the presidency of Mayor Jacob Aaron Westervelt. The building stood in Reservoir Square.
New York's 1853 Exhibition was held on a site behind the Croton Distributing Reservoir
Croton Distributing Reservoir
The Croton Distributing Reservoir, also known as the Murray Hill Reservoir, was an above-ground reservoir at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It supplied the city with drinking water during the 19th century. The reservoir was a man-made lake in area,...
, between Fifth and Sixth
Sixth Avenue (Manhattan)
Sixth Avenue – officially Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown"...
Avenues on 42nd Street
42nd Street (Manhattan)
42nd Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, known for its theaters, especially near the intersection with Broadway at Times Square. It is also the name of the region of the theater district near that intersection...
, in what is today Bryant Park
Bryant Park
Bryant Park is a 9.603 acre privately managed public park located in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and between 40th and 42nd Streets in Midtown Manhattan...
. The New York Crystal Palace was designed by Georg Carstensen
Georg Carstensen
Johan Bernhard Georg Carstensen was one of the developers of Tivoli Gardens and a Danish army officer. He spent most of his childhood in the Near East. He travelled widely and had a career in the military Royal Guards, reaching the rank of lieutenant...
and German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
Charles Gildemeister, and was directly inspired by The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...
built in London's Hyde Park
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...
to house The Great Exhibition of 1851
The Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations or The Great Exhibition, sometimes referred to as the Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held, was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October...
. The New York Crystal Palace had the shape of a Greek cross, and was crowned by a dome 100 feet in diameter. Like the Crystal Palace of London, it was constructed from iron and glass. Construction was handled by engineer Christian Edward Detmold
Christian Edward Detmold
Christian Edward Detmold was an engineer.-Biography:He was educated at the military academy in Hanover, and came to New York in 1826, with the intention of entering the Brazilian army. Unfavorable accounts of the conditions in Brazil induced him to remain in the United States, and he became well...
. Horatio Allen
Horatio Allen
Horatio Allen LL.D was an American civil engineer and inventor.Born in Schenectady, New York, he graduated from Columbia in 1823, and was appointed the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company chief engineer. In 1828 he was sent to England to buy locomotives for the canal company's projected railway...
was the consulting engineer, and Edward Hurry the consulting architect.
President Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce was the 14th President of the United States and is the only President from New Hampshire. Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general in the Army...
spoke at the dedication on July 14, 1853. Theodore Sedgwick
Theodore Sedgwick (writer)
Theodore Sedgwick was an American law writer.He was born at Albany, New York and graduated from Columbia College in 1829. In 1858, he became United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He was the son of Theodore Sedgwick II and Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick , a writer,...
was the first president of the Crystal Palace Association. After a year, he was succeeded by Phineas T. Barnum who put together a reinauguration in May 1854 when Henry Ward Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher was a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker in the mid to late 19th century...
and Elihu Burritt
Elihu Burritt
Elihu Burritt was an American philanthropist and social activist.-Biography:He was born December 8, 1810, in the town of New Britain, Connecticut....
were the featured orators. This revived interest in the Palace, but by the end of 1856 it was a dead property.
The adjoining Latting Observatory
Latting Observatory
The Latting Observatory was a wooden tower in New York City built as part of the 1853 Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, adjoining the New York Crystal Palace. It was located on the North side of 42nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue across the street from the site of...
, a wooden tower 315 feet (96 m) high, allowed visitors to see into Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
, Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
and New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. The tower, taller than the spire of Trinity Church
Trinity Church, New York
Trinity Church at 79 Broadway, Lower Manhattan, is a historic, active parish church in the Episcopal Diocese of New York...
at 290 feet (88.4 m), was the tallest structure in New York City from the time it was constructed in 1853 until it burnt down in 1856.
The New York Crystal Palace itself was destroyed by fire on October 5, 1858. When it burned, the fair of the American Institute was being held there. The fire began in a lumber room on the side adjacent to 42nd Street. Within fifteen minutes its dome fell and in twenty-five minutes the entire structure had burned to the ground. No lives were lost but the loss of property amounted to more than $350,000. This included the building, valued at $125,000, and exhibits and valuable statuary remaining from the World's Fair.New York Times, Other Burned Theatres, December 7, 1876, Page 10.
Elisha Otis
Elisha Otis
Elisha Graves Otis was an American industrialist, founder of the Otis Elevator Company, and inventor of a safety device that prevents elevators from falling if the hoisting cable fails. He worked on this device while living in Yonkers, New York in 1852, and had a finished product in...
demonstrated the safety elevator, which prevented the fall of the cab if the cable broke, at the Crystal Palace in 1854 in a death-defying, dramatic presentation.The Elevator Museum, timeline; "Skyscrapers" Magical Hystory Tour: The Origins of the Commonplace & Curious in America (September 1, 2010). That year another building directly inspired by London's Crystal Palace, the Glaspalast
Glaspalast (Munich)
The Glaspalast was a glass and iron exhibition building in Munich modeled after The Crystal Palace in London. The Glaspalast opened for the Erste Allgemeine Deutsche Industrieausstellung on July 15, 1854.-Construction:The Glaspalast was ordered by Maximilian II, King of Bavaria, built by MAN AG...
in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, was inaugurated.