Cornell University, Sage Chapel, Central Avenue, Ithaca, Tompkins County, NY

Significance: Sage Chapel is significant among American collegiate chapels of the 19th century as a synthesis of the principal architectural currents that influenced the design of such edifices between 1860 and 1900. It is unusual among university buildings of its period in the harmony of the design observed in planning additions to the original building.
The chapel is historically important as the setting for one of the first nonsectarian pulpits to be established in the chapel of an American university or college. Since 1875, leading preachers and theologians from most Christian sects and other influential religious thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries have spoke in the Sage pulpit.
Survey number: HABS NY-5726
Building/structure dates: 1875 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 1884 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1899 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1905 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1940 Subsequent Work