The auditorium seats 1,300 people, and it is named for Liberty Hyde Bailey, the first dean of what is now Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Bailey Hall was constructed in 1912, according to the Greek Revival architecture design of Buffalo-based architect Edward Brodhead Green, an 1878 graduate of Cornell University.

It is shaped as an amphitheatre, with a colonnaded portico wrapping around its south side, and monumental stairs leading up to 11-foot main doors.

The road and small parking lot immediately in front of Bailey were converted into a pedestrian plaza which was opened to the public in 2007.

A fountain carved from local stone into a natural, sloping shape invoking Ithaca's gorges is featured on the southern edge of the plaza.