New York Crystal Palace

The site you are approaching was once home to the New York Crystal Palace, a massive iron and glass exhibition hall that opened in eighteen fifty-three. It served as the venue for America’s first world's fair, the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations. Designed as a Greek cross and topped with a prominent dome, the structure was built to showcase the United States as a burgeoning industrial power capable of rivaling the great nations of Europe. It occupied the space we now know as Bryant Park, standing behind the old Croton Distributing Reservoir.