Origin and inspiration Dr.
Henry Mitchell MacCracken, chancellor of NYU, proposed the Hall of Fame in the late 1890s to conceal a retaining wall for the Gould Memorial Library, which was exposed because the site sloped steeply downward to the west. According to MacCracken, the hall "owes its inception in large part to hard facts of physical geography". The Hall of Fame for Great Americans was the first
hall of fame in the United States. Chancellor McCracken described the evolution of the Hall of Fame's design: John J. Tucker received the general contract for the Hall of Fame. The hall was to contain commemorative plaques for 150 individuals, 50 of whom were to be selected in 1900. Every five years thereafter, the electors would select five additional names by majority vote, with the final selections being made in 2000. An individual was eligible only if they were born in the U.S. and had died at least ten years prior. Each U.S. state originally had one elector; in twenty states, the chief justice served as that state's elector. In October 1900, the NYU Senate approved the first inductees for inclusion. The Senate also approved the addition of a loggia for foreign-born inductees, with space for up to thirty names. The hall included 29 names when it was dedicated on May 30, 1901; the foreign inductees' loggia had not yet been built due to a lack of funds. When the Hall of Fame was completed, it was so widely known that
The New York Times regularly reported on nominations and elections, even detailing how many votes each nominee received. Instead, the electors had to select 26 native-born men during the 1905 election, as well as 12 women and six foreign-born men. Separate elections were hosted for women and for foreign-born men. Every person who received at least ten votes in the 1900 election was re-nominated. Male nominees needed at least 51 votes; female nominees only required 47 votes because eight electors refused to vote for any woman. Five native-born men, three women, and three foreign-born men were selected that year; their plaques were dedicated in 1907. The Hall of Fame's first bust (depicting
Horace Mann, who had been elected in 1900) was also dedicated in 1907. The foreign-born honorees were not inducted at the time because MacCracken was planning a separate wing for them. Some electors protested that the foreign-born and native-born honorees should be honored together. In the five years that followed, 20 electors either retired or died, and 25 electors were appointed in their place. MacCracken changed the rules for electors ahead of the 1915 election, such that one elector was apportioned to every state or group of states with one million residents. MacCracken canceled plans for a separate wing for foreign-born honorees in 1914, allowing foreign-born citizens to be inducted into the existing Hall of Fame. In addition, the electors were allowed to select at least two women in every election. An additional 21 electors either retired or died in the next five years, and only 34 of the original electors remained by 1920. The next year, writer
Robert Underwood Johnson was appointed as the Hall of Fame's second director, following the death of MacCracken, his immediate predecessor.
1920s and 1930s Between the two world wars, the Hall of Fame saw up to 50,000 visitors annually. Seven Americans were selected in 1920, including foreign-born theologian
Roger Williams, who had first been elected ten years prior. Five busts, depicting nominees from previous elections, were unveiled in May 1922; they were the first busts to be added since 1907. The same year, the Hall of Fame's board of electors decided to abolish separate elections for female nominees. The electors had been concerned that "zealous partisans and relatives" would attempt to nominate individuals of "temporary vogue" shortly after their deaths. The honorees' tablets, which had been segregated by gender, were subsequently rearranged. New tablets had to be created for each of the seven female honorees because the existing tablets were wedged so firmly into the hall's foundation. NYU continued to unveil busts of honorees from previous elections in May of each year. Seven additional busts were dedicated in 1923, ten in 1924, and five in 1925. Only two men were picked in the 1925 election, the first held under the new rules; one of them was foreign-born naval officer
John Paul Jones, who had first been elected twenty years prior. The university dedicated nine busts in 1926, six in 1927, five in 1928, and eight in 1929. Nine busts were dedicated in May 1930, as well as two sets of new gates. At that point, all 65 previous honorees had busts. and their busts were unveiled the next May. By 1935, the Hall of Fame retained 11 of its original electors. That year, the electors voted to induct three men. The busts of two of these men were unveiled in May 1936, but the bust of
Grover Cleveland was dedicated almost a year later in March 1937, coinciding with what would have been his 100th birthday. The Hall of Fame's electors leased offices at the
International Building in
Rockefeller Center in mid-1937. Following Johnson's death later that year, journalist
John Huston Finley was appointed as the Hall of Fame's director.
1940s to 1960s Of 141 candidates nominated in 1940, composer
Stephen Collins Foster was the only person selected; his bust was dedicated the next May. This was the first time a musician was elected to the Hall of Fame, as well as the first election in which a single honoree was selected. Phelps died less than three years later, and educator
James Rowland Angell became the hall's fifth director in 1944. The Hall of Fame's electors switched back to a majority vote for the 1945 election, when four men were selected:
Booker T. Washington,
Sidney Lanier,
Walter Reed, and
Thomas Paine. The bust of Washington, the hall's first Black honoree, was dedicated in May 1946. Busts of the other honorees were delayed; while Reed's was dedicated in May 1948.
Ralph Washington Sockman, the pastor of Christ Church United Methodist in Manhattan, became the hall's sixth director after Angell died in 1949. Sockman served in that position until his death two decades later. Six people were selected in 1950:
Susan B. Anthony,
Alexander Graham Bell,
Josiah Willard Gibbs,
William C. Gorgas,
Theodore Roosevelt, and
Woodrow Wilson. Bell's and Gorgas's busts were dedicated in 1951, followed by those of Anthony and Payne in 1952 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1954.
Wilbur Wright,
George Westinghouse, and
Stonewall Jackson were selected during the 1955 election. By then, the renown of some of the nominees had begun to decline, and many nominees tended to be from lesser-known fields. The bust of Wilson, who had been honored in the previous election, was dedicated in May 1956. Stonewall Jackson's bust was dedicated one year later in May 1957, followed that December by the busts of Westinghouse and Gibbs. NYU wished to unveil Wilbur Wright's bust alongside that of his brother
Orville Wright, who had died in 1948 and was thus ineligible for nomination until the 1970s. NYU's senate waived the 25-year requirement for Orville Wright, allowing him to be nominated during the 1960 election.
Thomas Edison,
Henry David Thoreau, and
Edward MacDowell were elected to the Hall of Fame in 1960. Ten people, including Orville Wright, failed to get a sufficient number of votes and were automatically re-nominated for the next election. while Thoreau's was unveiled the following May, the hundredth anniversary of his death. MacDowell's bust was not unveiled until October 1964. In addition, the Hall of Fame hired the Medallic Arts Company in 1963 to create bronze and silver medals for each of the honorees. The company created 99 different designs of medals. Orville Wright was finally selected for the Hall of Fame in 1965, along with
Jane Addams,
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and
Sylvanus Thayer. Four of the five remaining busts were dedicated in each of the three subsequent years. The first was Thayer's bust in 1966, followed by the Wright brothers' busts and then Addams's bust. The Hall of Fame did not dedicate Holmes's bust until 1970, five years after his election.
Sale of campus and final elections The Hall of Fame remained prominent through the 1960s, when the hall and its honorees were covered in the
World Book Encyclopedia. Subsequently, elections for the Hall of Fame were hosted every three years. Wald's bust was installed in September 1971. By then, the hall's renown had started to decline. Urban planner
Robert Moses wrote in 1971 that the previous election had happened largely without fanfare and that the
American Revolution Bicentennial Commission did not even mention the Hall of Fame in its reports. According to Charles Parks, leader of the
National Sculpture Society, the Hall of Fame's decline could be attributed to the fact that modern halls of fame commemorated living people, honoring "lots of celebrities and very few heroes". In 1973, NYU sold its Bronx campus to the
City University of New York (CUNY), which operated the campus as part of the
Bronx Community College (BCC). The sale specifically excluded the Hall of Fame, which CUNY officials believed had no value. Following the sale, there was uncertainty as to whether NYU, CUNY, or another organization would operate the Hall of Fame. The Trustees of the Hall of Fame was established in 1974, and NYU and CUNY jointly provided $125,000 a year for the hall's upkeep. The agreement lasted three years. NYU was considering eliminating its $61,000 annual subsidy for the Hall of Fame by 1976. The hall's remote location, far from the
New York City Subway, attracted few visitors compared to other tourist attractions in New York City.
Clara Barton,
Luther Burbank, and
Andrew Carnegie were elected to the Hall of Fame the same year. This was the Hall of Fame's last election. while Roosevelt's bust was not installed for another fifteen years. The busts of Brandeis, Barton, Burbank, and Carnegie were never executed due to a lack of funds.
Maintenance and upkeep 1970s to 1990s Funding for the Hall of Fame ceased nearly entirely after the
United States Bicentennial in 1976, and the agreement between NYU and CUNY expired around the same time. All of the hall's guides were fired and the hall's information booth was closed. This was at least partially attributed to fears of high crime in the surrounding area. That year, officials in
New Jersey rejected a plan to relocate the Hall of Fame to
Liberty State Park. Responsibility for the Hall of Fame was split between NYU, which owned the busts; the
Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY), which owned the colonnade; and CUNY, which provided security and maintenance. In 1979, there was one staff member and no funds for maintenance. Many of the busts corroded in the following years. Some busts were also vandalized, such as that of
Andrew Jackson, which was knocked out of its niche and pushed down a hill. Afterward, BCC created a promotional videotape and trained several tour guides. The hall had only 1,000 visitors in 1987, excluding students on field trips, even though admission was free. Roosevelt's bust was finally installed in July 1992. The
William A. Hall Partnership was hired to restore the ceiling in 1992, and the
Cavalier Renaissance Foundry restored 90 of the busts for about $40,000. Several conservators criticized the fact that the original finishes of these busts had been removed. The next year, the
Municipal Art Society gave BCC a preservation award for "outstanding building restoration". By the late 1990s, Rourke hoped to restart elections for the Hall of Fame. To accommodate additional honorees, Rourke proposed expanding the Hall of Fame into the Gould Library, as well as displaying short video clips instead of busts. Meanwhile, Rourke asked
Brandeis University, the
American Red Cross, and the
Carnegie Foundation if they would respectively fund the busts of Brandeis, Barton, and Carnegie. All three organizations declined to donate $25,000 for each bust.
2000s to present In 2000, Bronx borough president
Fernando Ferrer offered a
matching grant of $500,000 to fund further renovations, as well as the four unexecuted busts. To raise money for the hall's renovation and expansion, BCC organized a $1 million fundraiser in 2001. Nearly two years later, BCC had raised only $2,000, all of it from NYU alumni. BCC announced plans in 2015 to raise $25 to $50 million for a renovation of the Gould Library, including an expansion of the Hall of Fame into the library. In August 2017, following a
white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, New York governor
Andrew Cuomo ordered that the busts of
Confederate States Army generals
Robert E. Lee and
Stonewall Jackson be removed. Following the removals, the Hall of Fame had 96 busts and space for six additional busts. CUNY planned to host an election to fill the two remaining spots, but there were still no funds for these elections. The
Cultural Landscape Foundation described the Hall of Fame as being one of several historic sites across the United States that were "at risk". ==Nominations==