Rockefeller Center, built between 1931 and 1939, sits on land that Columbia owned until selling it to the Rockefellers in 1985. The 14-acre site, the former home of the Elgin Botanical Garden, had been deeded to Columbia College in 1814 by New York State. Columbia chose not to build a new campus on the land, which became known as the Upper Estate, but rather to lease it out in 216 lots, a strategy that enriched the endowment considerably. When the College did move to the area in 1857, it occupied a four-block site to the southeast that formerly housed the New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. The College remained there until moving to Morningside Heights in 1897.