History
The hall of fame and museum are located in the Newport Casino, which was commissioned in 1880 by James Gordon Bennett, Jr. as an exclusive resort for the rich and wealthy, and was designed by Charles McKim along with Stanford White, who did the interiors. By the 1950s, the retreat was struggling financially and was in danger of being demolished for modern retail space.
The United States Lawn Tennis Association had held its first championships at the Newport Casino in 1881, an event that would continue through 1914, by which time tennis had become the key attraction at the resort. In 1954, James Henry Van Alen established the Tennis Hall of Fame and Museum in the Casino. The combination of tennis matches and the museum allowed the building to be saved. It is an example of Victorian Shingle Style architecture.
Van Alen intended the facility to be "a shrine to the ideals of the game", and was elected president of the hall in 1957. The International Tennis Hall of Fame was officially sanctioned by the United States Tennis Association on its foundation in 1954, and recognized by the International Tennis Federation in 1986. The first Hall of Fame members were inducted in 1955; as of 2010, there are 218 inductees from 19 countries.
Read more about this topic: International Tennis Hall Of Fame
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
““And now this is the way in which the history of your former life has reached my ears!” As he said this he held out in his hand the fatal letter.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)