Crouse College: America's First Fine Arts School
Near Syracuse, New York
The Romanesque Revival tower of Crouse College has anchored the Syracuse University hilltop since eighteen eighty-nine, its warm brownstone and graceful spires visible from across the city. Banker and businessman John Crouse funded the building as a memorial to his late wife and intended it as a college for women. He died during construction, and his son honored the spirit of the gift by opening the doors to men and women alike.
The building that resulted housed the first College of Fine Arts in the United States, a distinction Syracuse has held ever since. Architect Archimedes Russell designed the structure at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, incorporating carved musical instruments and an artist's palette above the entrance. Inside, the main auditorium holds a thirty-eight hundred-pipe Holtkamp organ beneath a seventy-foot open timber roof. The college and its music school remain among the most respected in the country.
