{"nrhp_refnum":"84003122","name":"Comstock Hall","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Cornell University campus","address_restricted":false,"city":"Ithaca","county":"Tompkins County","state":"NY","lat":42.44960426100005,"lon":-76.47895382799999,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1984-09-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Comstock Hall, originally the Home Economics Building, is a three-story brick building on a high basement on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York, on the north side of the Agricultural Quadrangle. It was built in 1911-12.","why_significant":"It was built for Cornell's Department of Home Economics, established in 1907 within the College of Agriculture, and housed classrooms, a library, an assembly room, a practice apartment and a cafeteria. Architecturally, it combines Renaissance formality with Arts and Crafts brickwork and eaves detailing, with Mannerist treatment of the central windows. It was designed by well-regarded architects and fits the scale and materials of the earlier college buildings.","narrative":"Comstock Hall is a brick academic building on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, built in 1911-12 as the Home Economics Building. It rises three stories above a high basement, with a fourth story inside its slate-covered hipped roofs. Walls of buff tapestry brick are trimmed with limestone, and the center of the south facade has a limestone porch with Tuscan columns and large semicircular-arched windows. The building was funded by the state legislature for the Department of Home Economics, created in 1907 under Martha Van Rensselaer and Flora Rose. It held classrooms, a library, an assembly room, a practice apartment and a cafeteria. Plans and elevations came from Cornell architecture faculty members Martin, Hebrard and Young, while the Buffalo firm Green & Wicks prepared working drawings and supervised construction. Its design blends Renaissance formality with Arts and Crafts details and respects the earlier College of Agriculture buildings. It is now named for naturalists Anna Botsford Comstock and John Henry Comstock and houses the Department of Entomology.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Architects Martin, Hebrard & Young (plans and elevations) and Green & Wicks (working drawings, specifications, construction supervision); builder Durolithic Company, Buffalo","architectural_style":"Renaissance-based design with Mannerist window treatment and Arts and Crafts elements, in keeping with Beaux-Arts eclecticism","criteria":[],"status_note":"Still used for classrooms, offices, laboratories and a department library, serving the Department of Entomology; condition listed as fair, with some alterations to the fourth-story loggia, central stairway and basement cafeteria.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:42.380037-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/84003122.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84003122/c71ea83963-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/84003122/c71ea83963-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"Notyourbroom","credit_html":"Notyourbroom, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cornell_Computing_and_Communications_Center.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75315174","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computing_and_Communications_Center,_Cornell_University","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q28126062"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/tompkins-county/comstock-hall-84003122/"}