About New York University (Washington Square)

The Silver Center on Washington Square East stands on the site of NYU's first home, a Gothic Revival University Building completed in 1835, where Samuel Morse took a tower studio and turned his attention to the telegraph. The present building, designed by Alfred Zucker, replaced it in the 1890s. New York University was founded in 1831, with Albert Gallatin among its founders, and settled on Washington Square soon after. It never built a walled campus. Instead its buildings are woven through Greenwich Village, most of them within a square bounded by Houston Street, Broadway, 14th Street and Sixth Avenue, with the densest cluster facing the park. The violet flags bearing NYU's torch, derived from the Statue of Liberty, are the easiest way to tell which buildings belong to it. The Washington Square Arch, though city property, serves as the university's unofficial symbol. On the south side of the square is the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, designed by Philip Johnson and Richard Foster and opened in 1973; its atrium floor is laid in a geometric marble pattern. The Kimmel Center and the Stern School of Business are also close to the park, and the historic row houses on Washington Square North are used by the university. A block south, the Silver Towers at Washington Square Village were designed by I. M. Pei. NYU buildings are for its community. Bobst Library admits outside visitors only when sponsored in advance by NYU staff or faculty, so most people see the campus from the park and surrounding streets.