Excerpt from How to See the New York Crystal Palace: Being a Concise Guide to the Principal Objects in the Exhibition as Remodelled, 1854
The following concise and graphic description of the building is copied from the first number of the "Illustrated Record of the Exhibition," published by Messrs. Geo. P. Putnam & Co.:
Reservoir Square, on which the building of the New-York Industrial Exhibition is erected, lies in the north-western part of the city, four miles distant from the Battery*and three and a quarter from the City Ball, between the Sixth Avenue and the Croton Distributing Reservoir, whose massive walls overshadow its eastern side. The distance from the Reservoir to the Avenue is 445 feet; and the width from Fortieth-street in the south, to Forty-second street, its northern limit, is 455 feet. This space is almost entirely occupied by the building. The shape of the ground is unfavorable for architectural purposes; and, aside from the facilities of access afforded by the Avenue railways and numerous lines of stages, there is nothing to recommend this locality, while the solid and imposing strength of the Reservoir presents an inharmonious contrast with that light and graceful structure which we now proceed to describe.
The appearance of the building, and the materials employed to construct it, show its relationship to the Crystal Palace of Hyde Park. Like that, its framework is a system of iron columns and girders; glass excludes the dull and heavy walls of masonry used in ordinary structures, and, with the slender proportions of the framing, gives the edifice the light and airy appearance so well expressed by its popular name. The resemblance which we have spoken of is only a general one; the ground plan, the relative proportion of each of the materials employed, and the details of construction, are quite different from its English prototype, and give it an architectural effect and character of its own.
The general idea of the New-York building is a Greek cross, surmounted by a dome at the intersection. The length of each diameter of the cross is 365 feet and 5 inches, and the width of the arms is 149 feet and 5 inches. This does not include the three entrance halls, projecting towards Sixth Avenue, Fortieth, and Forty-second streets, which are each 27 feet wide, and approached by flights of steps. By referring to the engravings [on pages 22 and 23 of tins catalogue], it will be seen that, although the edifice is cruciform, the outline of the ground plan is nearly a regular octagon, whose diameter is the same a* that of the arms of the cross. This form has been given to it by ingeniously filling up the triangular intervals between the arms of the cross with a lean-to of only one story, or twenty-four feet in height. The adoption of this device was necessary in order to provide space for the exhibition; it being impossible within the narrow limits of the site to enlarge the dimensions of the cross in the usual way; and while this substantial advantage is gained, it is productive of only a slight architectural defect in diminishing the prospective of the interior.
The arrangement of the columns is represented upon the diagrams. It will be seen that they divide tho interior into two principal avenues or naves, each 11 feet and 5 inches wide, with aisles 54 feet wide upon either side. The intersection of the naves leaves in the centre a free octagonal space 100 feet in diameter.
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