The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences established a laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor in 1890.  The attractive seaside locale allowed for summer biology students to study the ecology of, and organisms in, the surrounding waters.  The first Biological Laboratory class convened in a rented Fish Hatchery Building on the Harbor.  To meet the demands of increasing enrollment, in 1893, the Lab began acquiring houses and constructing buildings of its own.

  In 1904 the Carnegie Institution of Washington opened a Department of Genetics at Cold Spring Harbor based in the Main Building, now the Carnegie Building.  In the early 1960s the Department of Genetics and the Biological Laboratory merged to form Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.  Today CSHL, the world-renowned molecular biology, genetics and neuroscience institute, operates out of 50 buildings. To study the buildings of CSHL is to study those who have lived and worked at the Lab and the science that it has produced.  Since 1994 the Laboratory grounds have been listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. 

  The virtual exhibit Building Blocks of CSHL features photographs, first hand accounts, and letters documenting the significance of CSHLs Buildings.