James Mathews, and including representatives of the clergy, the commercial occupations, law, and medicine, met at the home of Reverend Matthews.
At the public meeting, held at the New York Historical Society in January 1830, Jonathan M. Wainwright of Grace Episcopal Church, echoing the thinking of the group, proposed a curriculum based on "useful instruction".
James M. Mathews was first Chancellor of New York University largely due to the confidence that Albert Gallatin had in him.
The building would only be NYU's home for a few years as Mathews looked uptown for a more suitable and permanent academic environment, more specifically bucolic Greenwich Village.
Mathews was also instrumental in the financial development, faculty and student growth and facility improvement of the university.