It only took 15 minutes for the New York Crystal Palace, a beautiful building made of iron and glass, to be destroyed.

Financially insolvent and falling apart, the building had seen better days. New management attempted to save the beautiful edifice, but its ruin was too far gone. What had once been a glamorous tourist attraction became a decrepit mess.

New York City considered selling it for scraps, or moving the building to Philadelphia, but the screws that kept it together had rusted, making the Crystal Palace too expensive to even take apart. It was almost a blessing when a fire–which was blamed on arson but was more likely the rest of some cost-saving compromises on the gas lines–burned the building to the ground.

But, as the New York Tribune said: “We shall never have another Crystal palace. Its glorious dome . . . is no more; its galleries, its treasures, its magnificent expanses indispensable to the mass-gatherings of this great metropolis–its superb memories are all gone, and gone forever.”

Highlights include:
• PT Barnum’s attempts to save the Crystal Palace
• An elevator safety demonstration that involved repeatedly cutting the cord
• An exclusive gala organized by conmen and ending in a brawl between ultra-wealthy guests
• How a sensation like the Crystal Palace could have been forgotten

Follow the podcast on instagram @buriedsecretspodcast

E-mail the podcast at buriedsecretspodcast@gmail.com. 

Pictures of the New York Crystal Palace Destroyed

Souvenir coin (source: Museum of the City of New York)

(source: Museum of the City of New York)

Folded souvenir with views of New York buildings, including the Crystal Palace, 1857. (source: Museum of the City of New York)

Folded souvenir with views of New York buildings, 1857. (source: Museum of the City of New York)

Flyer for a sale of relics (source: Museum of the City of New York)

Sources consulted RE: the New York Crystal Palace Destroyed

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:
  • The Smallpox Hospital, aka Renwick Ruin, on Roosevelt Island, NYC – Part 1
  • The Renwick Ruin and Charity Hospital, Roosevelt Island, NYC – Part 2
• Investigating the Hawthorne Hotel: 
  • Investigating the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, Part 1
  • Investigating the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, Part 2
  • Investigating the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, Part 3, and the Salem Marine Society
• 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
•