Founder's Hall (Rockefeller University) Founder's Hall (Rockefeller University) Founder's Hall was the first building built on the campus of The Rockefeller University (formerly The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research ) at 66th Street and York Avenue, in Manhattan, New York City. Built between 1903 and 1906, it represents an instance of one of John D. Rockefeller's largest scale efforts at philanthropy, and housed the nation's first major biomedical research laboratory. Construction costs for Founders, which included an Animal housing facility and a powerhouse were $276,000. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974. The building is now mainly used for school offices. Founder's
Laurance Rockefeller involved in healthcare. Over the years his investment interests ranged also into the fields of aerospace, electronics, high temperature physics, composite materials, optics, lasers, data processing, thermionics, instrumentation and nuclear power. Venrock was a limited partnership investment company financed by members of the Rockefeller family and a number of the institutions with which the family had longstanding philanthropic ties, among them the Museum of Modern Art, Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Rockefeller's major interest was in aviation; after the War, he became friendly with Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, who had triumphed in many dogfights over Europe. Rockefeller had learned