Audubon Terrace

	Audubon Terrace Historic District
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
	U.S. Historic district
	New York City Landmark
	American Renaissance
NRHP reference No.	80002667
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	May 30, 1980
Designated NYCL	January 9, 1979

Audubon Terrace, also known as the Audubon Terrace Historic District, is a landmark complex of eight early-20th century

West 156th Streets, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan, New York City

, United States. Home to several cultural institutions, the architecturally complementary buildings, which take up most of a city block, are arranged in two parallel rows facing each other across a common plaza. The complex is directly across 155th Street from Trinity Church Cemetery.

Although the

New York City landmark in 1979,^[2] and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.^[3]

History

Named for naturalist and artist

Charles P. Huntington, in 1908.^[1] Archer Huntington chose the location at a time when the two centuries old northward march of fashionable residences and cultural institutions seemed likely to transform the largely rural area. He assumed that other museums and learned societies would soon join him, creating an intellectual citadel atop the island's heights. The widespread adoption of the elevator and steel framing at this time, however, led Manhattan real estate to begin to develop vertically instead and New York's other great cultural institutions failed to follow suit - in fact, most of the organizations which located on Audubon Terrace were headed by or strongly connected to Huntington.^[6]

In 1904, Huntington had founded the

Museum of the American Indian

(1915–22).

In 1921-23, William M. Kendall of

American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1976.^[2]

The plaza surrounding these buildings is the location of a number of sculptures executed by Anna Hyatt Huntington, Archer Huntington's wife, between 1927 and 1944.^[2] These include a large equestrian statue of the legendary Spanish knight El Cid (1927), in front of the Hispanic Society Library.^[7]^[8]

Resident institutions

A number of the original institutions are no longer resident on the Terrace:^[4]

The American Geographical Society, founded in 1851, moved its collection of maps, photographs, books, journals and atlases - the largest map collection in the world - to the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1978.^[1]^[9] The AGS was replaced on Audubon Terrace by a campus of Boricua College, a bilingual college.
The
Heye Foundation's Museum of the American Indian (founded in 1916) merged into the National Museum of the American Indian, a component of the Smithsonian Institution which opened in 2004 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., with a small permanent gallery remaining in New York City in the Custom House at Bowling Green.^[1] The space occupied by the Museum of the American Indian is now used by the Hispanic Society.^[1]

The
Varick Street in downtown Manhattan.^[10] This building has been taken over by the American Academy of Arts and Letters as an Annex,^[1] and the space between it and the original Academy building was converted in 2009 into a new entrance link designed by James Vincent Czajka with Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.^[1]

Of the remaining original institutions, the Hispanic Society is renovating its existing space as well as expanding into the space left vacant by the Museum of the American Indian, a project that will take several years to complete. A plan to move the Hispanic Society downtown was contemplated in 2006 but ultimately not carried out.

Iberian peninsula, with some items from Spanish America.^[13]

The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1898. Its gallery is open to the public Tuesdays through Saturdays from 1 pm to 4 pm, except from March to June, when it is open Thursdays through Sundays from 1 pm to 4 pm.[14]

References

Notes

^
ISBN 978-0-19538-386-7
.

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission "Audubon Terrace Historic District Designation Report" Archived 2017-02-28 at the Wayback Machine (January 9, 1979)
^ ^a ^b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
^ ^a ^b Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes: Audubon Terrace", The New York Times, (May 17, 1987) accessed March 30, 2008
^
ISBN 978-0-470-28963-1
.

^ "Additional Institutions Founded and Funded by Archer M. Huntington". A Collection in Context: The Hispanic Society of America. Columbia University. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
^ "Anna Hyatt Huntington" Archived 2008-04-24 at the Wayback Machine on the Hispanic Society website, accessed March 30, 2008
^ Framberger, David J. & Olshansky, Joan R. (December 1979). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Audubon Terrace Historic District". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved 2011-03-19. See also: "Accompanying eight photos".
^ "Timeline of the American Geographical Society" Archived 2013-10-23 at the Wayback Machine on the AGS website
^ "About the ANS" on the American Numismatic Society website]
^ Hispanic Society Board Endorses Plan to Leave Washington Heights for Downtown, The New York Times (March 23, 2006), accessed March 30, 2008
^ "Visitor Information". 4 June 2015.
^ Hispanic Society - Collections Archived 2008-04-20 at the Wayback Machine, accessed March 30, 2008
^ Informational plaques at Audubon Terrace

Bibliography

Walsh, Kevin (2006).
ISBN 0-06-114502-5
.

External links

Audubon Terrace Gallery Archived 2011-07-07 at the Wayback Machine - 96 photos

[aia-1] 
ISBN 978-0-19538-386-7
.

[desrep-2] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission "Audubon Terrace Historic District Designation Report" Archived 2017-02-28 at the Wayback Machine (January 9, 1979)

[nris-3] "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.

[streetscapes-4] Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes: Audubon Terrace", The New York Times, (May 17, 1987) accessed March 30, 2008

[nycland-5] 
ISBN 978-0-470-28963-1
.

[6] "Additional Institutions Founded and Funded by Archer M. Huntington". A Collection in Context: The Hispanic Society of America. Columbia University. Retrieved 7 April 2021.

[7] "Anna Hyatt Huntington" Archived 2008-04-24 at the Wayback Machine on the Hispanic Society website, accessed March 30, 2008

[nrhpinv_ny-8] Framberger, David J. & Olshansky, Joan R. (December 1979). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Audubon Terrace Historic District". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved 2011-03-19. See also: "Accompanying eight photos".

[9] "Timeline of the American Geographical Society" Archived 2013-10-23 at the Wayback Machine on the AGS website

[10] "About the ANS" on the American Numismatic Society website]

[11] Hispanic Society Board Endorses Plan to Leave Washington Heights for Downtown, The New York Times (March 23, 2006), accessed March 30, 2008

[12] "Visitor Information". 4 June 2015.

[13] Hispanic Society - Collections Archived 2008-04-20 at the Wayback Machine, accessed March 30, 2008

[plaques-14] Informational plaques at Audubon Terrace

[1]

[3]

[2]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[4]

[9]

[10]

[13]

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History

Resident institutions

See also

References

External links