Rockefeller Family - The Edifice Complex

The Edifice Complex

The family was heavily involved in many real estate construction projects in the U.S. during the 20th century. Chief among them:

• Rockefeller Center, a multi-building complex built at the start of the Depression in Midtown Manhattan, financed solely by the family
• International House of New York, New York City, 1924 (Junior) {Involvement: John D. 3rd, Abby Aldrich, David & Peggy, David Jr., Abby O'Neill}
• Wren Building, College of William and Mary's, Virginia, from 1927 (Renovation funded by Junior)
• Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, from 1927 onwards (Junior, Abby Aldrich, John D. 3rd and Winthrop), historical restoration
• Museum of Modern Art, New York City, from 1929 (Abby Aldrich, Junior, Blanchette, Nelson, David, David Jr., Sharon Percy Rockefeller)
• Riverside Church, New York City, 1930 (Junior)
• The Cloisters, New York City, from 1934 (Junior)
• The Interchurch Center, New York City, 1948 (Junior)
• Asia Society (Asia House), New York City, 1956 (John D. 3rd)
• One Chase Manhattan Plaza, New York City, 1961 (David)
• Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York, 1962 (Nelson)
• Lincoln Center, New York City, 1962 (John D. 3rd)
• World Trade Center Twin Towers, New York City, 1973-2001 (David and Nelson)
• The Embarcadero Complex, San Francisco, 1974 (David)
• Council of the Americas/Americas Society, New York City, 1985 (David)
• In addition to this is Senior and Junior's involvement in seven major housing developments:
  • Forest Hill Estates, Cleveland, Ohio
  • City Housing Corporation's efforts, Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, New York City
  • Thomas Garden Apartments, The Bronx, New York City
  • Paul Lawrence Dunbar Housing, Harlem, New York City
  • Lavoisier Apartments, Manhattan, New York City
  • Van Tassel Apartments, Sleepy Hollow, New York (formerly North Tarrytown)
  • A development in Radburn, New Jersey
  • A further project involved David Rockefeller in a major middle-income housing development when he was elected in 1947 as chairman of Morningside Heights, Inc., in Manhattan by fourteen major institutions that were based in the area, including Columbia University. The result, in 1951, was the six-building apartment complex known as Morningside Gardens.
• Senior's donations led to the formation of the University of Chicago in 1889, where the first American Nobel Prize in Science was produced in 1907, and notable for the Chicago School of Economics. This was one instance of a long family and Rockefeller Foundation tradition of financially supporting Ivy League and other major colleges and universities over the generations - seventy-five in total. This includes:
  • Harvard University
  • Dartmouth College
  • Princeton University
  • Stanford University
  • Yale University
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Case Western Reserve University
  • Brown University
  • Columbia University
  • Cornell University
  • University of Pennsylvania
    • This financial assistance extends overseas to institutions such as London School of Economics
    • University College London, among many others.
• Senior (and Junior) also created
  • Rockefeller University in 1901
  • General Education Board in 1902, which later (1923) evolved into the International Education Board
  • Rockefeller Sanitary Commission in 1910
  • Bureau of Social Hygiene in 1913 (Junior)
  • International Health Commission in 1913
  • China Medical Board in 1915.
  • Rockefeller Museum, Israel, 1925–30
  • In the 1920s, the International Education Board granted important fellowships to pathbreakers in modern mathematics, such as Stefan Banach, Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, and André Weil, which was a formative part of the gradual shift of world mathematics to the US over this period.
  • To help promote cooperation between physics and mathematics Rockefeller funds also supported the erection of the new Mathematical Institute at the University of Göttingen between 1926 and 1929
  • The rise of probability and mathematical statistics owes much to the creation of the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris, partly by the Rockefellers' finances, also around this time.
• Junior also financially supported numerous other major institutions:
  • Notable among them his ongoing support for the highly influential foreign policy think tank
  • The New York Council on Foreign Relations, established in 1921.
  • In 1978 the Rockefeller Foundation initiated the founding of the financial advisory council called the Group of Thirty, as well as many grants to a myriad of universities, think tanks and other institutions.
  • Junior was also responsible for the creation and endowment of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which operates the restored historical town at Williamsburg, Virginia, one of the most extensive historic restorations ever undertaken.