The New York Crystal Palace: A look at New York City’s ill-fated Crystal Palace, a beautiful structure built on an abandoned cemetery on the outskirts of town.
In the mid-19th century, a castle of glass stood in the wilds of what is now a bustling part of New York City. It was an answer to a similar Crystal Palace in London, which had hosted an exhibition a couple years before.
The Crystal Palace and the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations was meant to represent American industry and ingenuity, but ended its days as a decrepit symbol of excess and mismanagement before going up in flames. Here’s part 1 of its story.
Highlights include:
• The story behind how NYC became a tourist destination
• Weird inventions like the “mechanical leech” and the “typeographer”
• The gardener-architect who built the world’s tallest fountain
• A sort of mini Eiffel Tower that sprouted up next to the Crystal Palace
Follow the podcast on instagram @buriedsecretspodcast
E-mail the podcast at buriedsecretspodcast@gmail.com.
Pictures of the Crystal Palace
Birds Eye View of the New York Crystal Palace and Environs 1853 (from http://crystalpalace.visualizingnyc.org/)
Latting Observatory broadside ca. 1853 (from http://crystalpalace.visualizingnyc.org/)
Latting Observatory from Valentine’s manual of old New York
August Petermann and Karl Gildemeister, designers; August Petermann, lithographer. New York Exhibition Building, 1852. Lithograph. Museum of the City of New York
New York Crystal Palace Illustrated Description of the Building (from http://crystalpalace.visualizingnyc.org/)
The Crystal Palace Dome (from http://crystalpalace.visualizingnyc.org/)
New York, 1855. From the Latting Observatory. (from http://crystalpalace.visualizingnyc.org/)
From New-York in a nutshell by Frederick Saunders
The Crystal Palace Exterior View. Victor Prevost, photographer, New York. 1853–54. Salted paper photograph (from http://crystalpalace.visualizingnyc.org/)
The New York Crystal Palace and Latting Observatory 1853 (from http://crystalpalace.visualizingnyc.org/)
Present Appearance of the Crystal Palace (from http://crystalpalace.visualizingnyc.org/)
From Old New York yesterday & today by Henry Collins Brown, 1922
Birds Eye View of the New York Crystal Palace and Environs 1853 (from http://crystalpalace.visualizingnyc.org/)
Sources consulted
Books
- The Finest Building in America: The New York Crystal Palace 1853-1858 by Edwin G. Burrows (2015)
- The Graveyard Shift: A Family Historian’s Guide to New York City Cemeteries by Carolee Inskeep (2000)
- How to See the New York Crystal Palace: Being a Concise Guide to the Principal Objects in the Exhibition as Remodeled, 1854 by the Association for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations
- A Day in the New York Crystal Palace and how to Make the Most of it: Being a Popular Companion to the “Official Catalogue,” and A Guide to All the Objects of Special Interest in the New York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations by William Carey Richards
- Official Catalogue of the New-York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, 1853
- Art and Industry as Represented in the Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in New York 1853 by Horace Greeley
- Old New York yesterday & today by Henry Collins Brown, 1922
- New-York in a nutshell by Frederick Saunders
- Valentine’s manual of old New York by Henry Collins Brown, 1919
- New York Crystal Palace: Illustrated Description of the Building
- Fifteen Minutes Around New York by George G. Foster, 1854
- Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park, Volume 1 by Samuel Phillips
Articles
- A Mammoth Tree. NEW-YORK CITY. New York Daily Times (1851-1857); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]09 Aug 1855: 1
Websites
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace#The_Great_Exhibition_of_1851
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latting_Observatory
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Crystal_Palace
- http://crystalpalace.visualizingnyc.org/digital-publication/
- https://nypost.com/2018/02/03/nycs-first-architectural-wonder-went-down-in-flames/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Crystal_Palace
bgc.bard.edu/gallery/exhibitions/3/new-york-crystal-palace-1853 - https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2015/03/the-crystal-palace-americas-first-worlds-fair-and-bizarre-treasures-of-the-19th-century.html
- https://books.google.com/books?id=XRNBAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=crystal+palace+new+york+guide&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NCcMVabVJ8elgwTkhoPABQ&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=crystal%20palace%20new%20york%20guide&f=false
https://books.google.com/books?id=9ecZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=crystal+palace+new+york+guide&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NCcMVabVJ8elgwTkhoPABQ&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=crystal%20palace%20new%20york%20guide&f=false - https://lithub.com/the-question-of-homoeroticism-in-whitmans-poetry/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Greeley
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._T._Barnum
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art
- https://aleteia.org/2019/10/07/thorvaldsens-christus-was-once-considered-the-most-perfect-statue-of-christ-in-the-world/
Don’t miss our past episodes:
- The Renwick Ruin:
- Investigating the Hawthorne Hotel:
- The Haunted Grove Park Inn, Asheville, North Carolina
- Haunted Asheville, North Carolina
- New York City Potter’s Fields
- Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York (Part 1)
- Archbishop John Hughes, aka Dagger John: Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York (Part 2)
- The Haunted Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas: Part 1
- The Haunted Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas: Part 2
- A Victorian Lunatic’s Fort: Fort Maxey, Blackwell’s Island, NYC
- The Roosevelt Island Lighthouse, or The Blackwell Island Light, NYC
- The General Slocum Disaster, Hell Gate, New York City
- The Haunted Hell Gate, New York City
- Haunted St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery
