page_title: Rockefeller family
section_title: Real estate and institutions
hierarchical_section_title: Rockefeller family / Real estate and institutions
caption_attribution_description: English: The Closters NY, view from Hudson RiverPolski: Muzeum The Cloisters, Nowy Jork, widok z rzeki Hudson
context_page_description: The Rockefeller family is an American industrial, political, and banking family that owns one of the world's largest fortunes. The fortune was made in the American petroleum industry during the late 19th and early 20th centuries by John D. Rockefeller and his brother William Rockefeller, primarily through Standard Oil. The family has had a long association with, and control of, Chase Manhattan Bank. As of 1977 the Rockefellers were considered one of the most powerful families in the history of the United States. The Rockefeller family originated in Rhineland in Germany and family members moved to the New World in the early 18th century, while through Eliza Davison, with family roots in Middlesex County, New Jersey, John D. Rockefeller and William Rockefeller Jr. and their descendants are also of Scotch-Irish ancestry.
context_section_description: The family was heavily involved in numerous real estate construction projects in the U.S. during the 20th century.  Chief among them:
  Rockefeller Center, a multi-building complex built at the start of the Depression in Midtown Manhattan, financed solely by the family
  International House of New York, New York City, 1924 (John Jr.) {Involvement: John III, Abby Aldrich, David & Peggy, David Jr., Abby O'Neill}
  Wren Building, College of William and Mary, Virginia, from 1927 (Renovation funded by Junior)
  Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, from 1927 onwards (Junior), Abby Aldrich, John III and Winthrop, historical restoration
  Museum of Modern Art, New York City, from 1929 (Abby Aldrich, John Jr., Blanchette, Nelson, David, David Jr., Sharon Percy Rockefeller)
  Riverside Church, New York City, 1930 (John Jr.)
  The Cloisters, New York City, from 1934 (John Jr.)
  The Interchurch Center, New York City, 1948 (John Jr.)
  Asia Society (Asia House), New York City, 1956 (John III)
  One Chase Manhattan Plaza, New York City, 1961 (David)
  Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York, 1962 (Nelson)
  Lincoln Center, New York City, 1962 (John III)
  World Trade Center Twin Towers, New York City, 1973–2001 (David and Nelson)
  Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, 1974 (David)
  Council of the Americas/Americas Society, New York City, 1985 (David)
  In addition to this is Senior and Junior's involvement in seven major housing developments:
  Forest Hill Estates, Cleveland, Ohio
  City Housing Corporation's efforts, Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, New York City
  Thomas Garden Apartments, The Bronx, New York City
  Paul Laurence Dunbar Housing, Harlem, New York City
  Lavoisier Apartments, Manhattan, New York City
  Van Tassel Apartments, Sleepy Hollow, New York (formerly North Tarrytown)
  A development in Radburn, New Jersey
  A further project involved David Rockefeller in a major middle-income housing development when he was elected in 1947 as chairman of Morningside Heights, Inc., in Manhattan by fourteen major institutions that were based in the area, including Columbia University. The result, in 1951, was the six-building apartment complex known as Morningside Gardens.
  Senior's donations led to the formation of the University of Chicago in 1889; the Central Philippine University in the Philippines (The first Baptist university and second American university in Asia); and notable for the Chicago School of Economics. This was one instance of a long family and Rockefeller Foundation tradition of financially supporting Ivy League and other major colleges and universities over the generations—seventy-five in total. These include:
  Harvard University
  Dartmouth College
  Princeton University
  University of California, Berkeley
  Stanford University
  Yale University
  Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  Brown University
  Tufts University
  Columbia University
  Cornell University
  University of Pennsylvania
  Case Western Reserve University
  Institutions overseas such as London School of Economics and University College London, among many others.
  Senior (and Junior) also created
  Rockefeller University in 1901
  General Education Board in 1902, which later (1923) evolved into the International Education Board
  Rockefeller Sanitary Commission in 1910
  Bureau of Social Hygiene in 1913 (Junior)
  International Health Division in 1913
  China Medical Board in 1915.
  Rockefeller Museum, Israel, 1925–30
  In the 1920s, the International Education Board granted important fellowships to pathbreakers in modern mathematics, such as Stefan Banach, Bartel Leendert van der Waerden, and André Weil, which was a formative part of the gradual shift of world mathematics to the US over this period.
  To help promote cooperation between physics and mathematics Rockefeller funds also supported the erection of the new Mathematical Institute at the University of Göttingen between 1926 and 1929
  The rise of probability and mathematical statistics owes much to the creation of the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris, partly by the Rockefellers' finances, also around this time.
  John D Jr. established International House at Berkele
caption: The Cloisters, Upper Manhattan
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