Who really built this building?
Check the ceiling is built in a fashion that old ancient buildings were built. perfect circular that is not used any more. Metropolitan Museum of Art tried tobuild an addition similar for their building that could not even compare with the technique and quality of this ceiling. Did we lost the technology?
The lamp has zodiacal motifs.
The doors are very tall as if were built for taller (giant) people.
The trees in front of the building are older that 116 years that is the age of the building at the present. They are around 230 years old. Nobody builds an alley to a building that will be built in the future.
Check the Statues in the front of the building. Are painted in blue. High quality sculptures painted in Blue? Why. You would think that when you have a high quality art you don't paint it in blue.
ww
Here is what I found about the building:
The Botanical Garden was founded in 1891 at the initiative of botanist Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife Elizabeth in partnership with the City of New York “for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a botanical garden and museum and arboretum therein, for the collection and culture of plants, flowers, shrubs, the advancement of botanical science and knowledge (…), and for the entertainment, recreation and instruction of the people”.
Along with gardens, New York Botanical Garden comprises various buildings, including the LuEsther T. Mertz Library (a large neo-Renaissance construction, previously known as Museum Building, designed by Robert W. Gibson and opened in 1901). according to the internet only the entrance pathway has trees that are 230 years old meaning the building is more that 230 years old.
LuEsther Turner Mertz (December 30, 1905, Cincinnati, Ohio – February 5, 1991, Port Washington, New York) was a businesswoman and philanthropist. She was the youngest child of a Methodist minister and his wife and trained as a librarian at Syracuse University.
In 1953, LuEsther and her husband, Harold Mertz, along with their daughter, Joyce, founded Publishers Clearing House. Over the years, Publishers Clearing House grew from an initial mailing of 10,000 letters to a marketing legend. Mrs. Mertz was active in the company's management, serving as a member of its executive committee until her death in 1991.The LuEsther T. Mertz Library is named after her. The trust also donates annually to 13 other named beneficiaries.
So She could have not given the building away before she was born.
So who was the owner of the building initially?
Here is another explanation
The New York Botanical Garden, an internationally renowned public garden and research institution, is within Bronx Park in an area previously owned by tobacco magnate Pierre Lorillard. In 1891, the City allocated 250 acres for a public botanical garden, for which the Torrey Botanical Club had advocated for some time.
The Club led a private fundraising campaign for the project, and this public-private structure still exists today. Nathaniel Lord Britton and his wife Elizabeth Gertrude Britton, prominent botanists, worked with the Club on this initiative, and in 1896, Mr. Britton became the institution’s first director. The The New York Botanical Garden was made a National Historic Landmark, and listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places in 1967.
Here is another info I found
Museum Building designed 1896, built 1898-1901, Robert W. Gibson, architect; Fountain 1901-05, Carl (Charles) E. Tefft, sculptor, Gibson, architect; Allee planted 1903-11
Landmark Site: Borough of the Bronx Tax Map 3272, Lot 1 in part, consisting of the property bounded by a line that corresponds to the outermost edges of the rear (eastern) portion of the original 1898-1901 Museum (now Library) Building (excluding the nternational Plant Science Center, Harriet Barnes Pratt Library Wing, and Jeannette Kittredge Watson Science and Education Building), the southernmost edge of the original Museum (now Library) Building (excluding the Annex) and a line extending southwesterly to Garden Way, the eastern curb line of Garden Way to a point on a line extending southwesterly from the northernmost edge
of the original Museum (now Library) Building, and northeasterly along said line and the northernmost edge of the original Museum (now Library) Building, to the point of beginning.
New York Botanical Garden in Bronx Park As early as 1888, the Torrey Botanical Club, the largest such American society, took on the mission of establishing a great botanical garden for New York City. The club was reportedly
inspired by the description of Elizabeth Gertrude Knight Britton, and her husband, Nathaniel Lord Britton, both academics and botanists, of a recent visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, England.
A committee of the club, and the Brittons, in particular, promoted the idea, gaining the support of newspapers and influential New Yorkers. By the following year, club members had selected Bronx Park in the Bronx as a favorable location; the park land had been acquired by New York City in 1884 in anticipation of Consolidation. This was part of the vast former land holdings(beginning in 1792 until 1870) of the Lorillard family of tobacco fortune fame.
How was the Botanical Garden Funded?
The legislation stipulated that when sufficient funds (not less than $250,000) were raised within five years of its passage, the Board was authorized to appropriate a portion of Bronx Park, not to exceed 250 acres,
as well as to construct “a suitable fireproof building for such botanical museum and herbarium, with lecture rooms and laboratories for instruction” and other necessary structures. The City was then to issue bonds for $500,000.
In June 1895, it was announced that the $250,000 goal had been met, with major
contributions from such titans as Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, J.D. Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt II (president of the Board).
Then the modifications began
In 1960-61, the original curved balustrade along the drive in front of the Museum Building and the front steps were replaced with new brick walls (now painted) with concrete coping and curved ends, and new granite steps with brick cheek walls with blues tone coping. A metal lamppost with three globes has been placed on either side of the steps atop the cheek walls, and the steps have metal railings. Three portions of the original Museum Building are visible on the rear facade: a section south of the Jeannette Kittredge Watson Science and Education Building; the central dome, visible above the Harriet Barnes Pratt Library Wing; and a northern section between the Pratt Library Wing and the International Plant
Science Center. The visible southern four-bayportion has a three-bay southern pavilion and is articulated with rustication. The water table has been parged. The southernmost windows on each storyhave been filled with brick, as have the northernmost two bays of the ground story.
South Facade: The five-bay south facade is articulated with a rusticated ground story and monumental Corinthian pilasters on the first and second stories. The ground story had a pedimented and arched entrance, which is now connected to
the Annex, with the upper portion of the arch filled in. The eastern portion of the water table has been parged. The windows on each story of the easternmost bay have been filled with brick. The westernmost three bays of the third story are full-height, while the rest of the story is a mansard roof, with an easternmost segmental dormer.
North Facade: The only remaining visible portion of
the north facade of the original five-bay Museum Building is the three westernmost bays, articulated with a rusticated ground story and monumental Corinthian pilasters on the first and second stories, and a small adjacent portion also having a pilaster on the first and second stories, as well as a small portion of the mansard roof. The ground story bays were altered (east to west) with: a louver and a painted window; metal doors; and louvers.
I believe this building is older I do not have any proof though.
Links
http://6tocelebrate.org/site/new-york-botanical-garden-and-museum-building/
http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/NYBG_REPORT.pdf
http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/about/cpc/090371.pdf