Overview & visitor information
Rockefeller Fountain stands at the western end of Astor Court in the Bronx Zoo. William Rockefeller donated it to the New York Zoological Society in 1903 after acquiring the work in Como, Italy, where it had originally stood in a public square.
Carved from stone in the nineteenth century, the fountain rises through elaborately modeled basins populated by marine animals, shells and human figures. Water descends across the stacked composition, joining European civic sculpture with the animal imagery of the zoo's formal Beaux-Arts court.
Its axial position closes the long approach through the historic ensemble and provides a vertical counterpoint to the low animal houses around it. The fountain is a designated New York City landmark and survives as both an imported work of decorative art and evidence of the patronage that shaped the early zoo.
