On This Day 30 October Events that happened on this date.

Cleopatra's Needle in New York City is one of a pair of obelisks, together named Cleopatra's Needles, that were moved from the ruins of the Caesareum of Alexandria, Egypt, in the 19th century. The stele, dating from the 15th century B.C., was installed in Central Park, west of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's main building in Manhattan, on February 22, 1881. It was secured in May 1877 by judge Elbert E. Farman, the United States Consul General at Cairo, as a gift from the Khedive for the United States remaining a friendly neutral as two European powers, France and Britain, maneuvered for political control of the Egyptian government. The transportation costs were largely paid by a railroad magnate, William Henry Vanderbilt, the eldest son of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

History

In antiquity

Made of red granite, the obelisk stands about 21 metres (69 ft) high, weighs about 200 tons, and is inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Originally erected in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis on the orders of Thutmose III, in 1475 BC, the obelisk's granite was mined from the quarries of Aswan near the first cataract of the Nile. The inscriptions were added about 200 years later by Ramesses II to commemorate his military victories.
The obelisks were moved to Alexandria and set up in the Caesareum—a temple built by Cleopatra in honor of Mark Antony or Julius Caesar—by the Romans in 13/12 BC, during the reign of Augustus.

American acquisition

The original idea to secure an Egyptian obelisk for New York City came from the March 1877 New York City newspaper accounts of the transporting of the London obelisk. The newspapers mistakenly attributed to a John Dixon the 1869 proposal of the Khedive of Egypt, Isma'il Pasha, to give the United States an obelisk as a gift for increased trade. Dixon, the contractor who, in 1877, arranged the transport of the London obelisk, denied the newspaper accounts.
In March 1877, Henry G. Stebbins, Commissioner of the Department of Public Parks of the City of New York, undertook to secure the funding to transport the obelisk to New York. However, when railroad magnate William H. Vanderbilt was asked to head the subscription, he offered to finance the project with a donation of more than US$100,000 (equivalent to $2,952,813 in 2024).
Stebbins then sent two acceptance letters to the Khedive through the Department of State which forwarded them to Judge Farman in Cairo. Realizing that he might be able to secure one of the two remaining upright obelisks—either the mate to the Paris obelisk in Luxor or the London mate in Alexandria—Judge Farman formally asked the Khedive in March 1877, and by May 1877 he had secured the gift in writing.