Hispanic Society of America

The story

Despite its name, the Hispanic Society of America has never functioned as a learned society. Philanthropist Archer M. Huntington founded it in 1904, and by 1908 it had a home in a Beaux Arts building on Audubon Terrace in Washington Heights. A second building followed in 1930, its exterior graced by sculpture from Anna Hyatt Huntington and nine major reliefs by Berthold Nebel — a commission that took ten years to complete. Now renamed the Hispanic Society Museum and Library, it holds more than 18,000 works spanning prehistoric times to the 20th century.