Originally founded in New York City on November 5, 1852. The Society's first headquarters were located in the Chamber of Commerce Building in Lower Manhattan.
On June 16, 1981, the ASCE Metropolitan Section unveiled a plaque on the site of ASCE's founding near the southwest corner of Chambers and Centre Streets in City Hall Park. The plaque commemorates the November 5, 1852 meeting of 12 civil engineers that took place in the office of Alfred Craven, then the eminent Chief Engineer of the Croton Aqueduct for the City of New York. The Croton Aqueduct Department was located in The Rotunda, which no longer exists. It was the first national engineering society ever created in the country.
At that meeting, the engineers declared the objects of the new Society to be: "the professional improvement of the members, the encouragement of social intercourse among men of practical science, the advancement of engineering in its several branches, and of architecture, and the establishment of a central point of reference and union for its members."
