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Roosevelt Building

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You’d think that the Roosevelt Building would be a NYC landmark, since it was actually in the Roosevelt family, had a famous movie studio tenant, and exceptional architecture. But it isn’t. Yet?

Teddy Roosevelt’s grandfather, Cornelius, owned the land under this building until his death in 1871. His heirs built the building as the neighborhood changed from residential to commercial. For a time, the structure was known as the Hackett Carhart Building, for a major tenant.

While most of the early tenants – including Hackett Carhart – were men’s wear manufacturers, Biograph Studios also had space here, and a revolving (to follow the sun) studio on the roof. This is where director D.W. Griffith got his start.

Roosevelt Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 841 Broadway at E 13th Street
  • Year completed: 1894
  • Architect: Stephen D. Hatch
  • Floors: 8
  • Style: Romanesque Revival
Roosevelt Building Suggested Reading

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Friends House

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Friends House (originally the B.W. Mayer Building) seems Mayan-inspired in its brickwork, terra cotta snakes and skulls, and turquoise details. The architect, Herman Lee Meader, also designed the Cliff Dwelling apartments on Riverside Drive and the Mayan-inspired 154-160 West 14th Street.

As the B.W. Mayer Building, it was originally offices; then for many years it was a trade school. In 1994 the Quakers purchased the building and restored it, converting the structure to a group residence.

Friends House Vital Statistics
  • Location: 130 E 25th Street at Lexington Avenue
  • Year completed: 1916
  • Architect: Herman Lee Meader
  • Floors: 7
  • Style: Art Deco
Friends House Suggested Reading

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Lafayette Hall

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Lafayette Hall (originally Hallenbeck-Hungerford Building) is an attractive neo-Gothic industrial building built to accommodate heavy equipment such as printing presses. It was converted in 1999 to a residence hall for NYU students. The L-shaped building wraps around the seven-story landmark Ahrens Building.

There are interesting grotesques in the upper stories – including headless characters on the 13th floor. Unlucky for them.

Lafayette Hall Vital Statistics
  • Location: 80 Lafayette Street between Franklin and White Streets
  • Year completed: 1915
  • Architect: William E. Austin
  • Floors: 16
  • Style: Neo-Gothic
Lafayette Hall Suggested Reading

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Nelson Tower

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Nelson Tower (after Julius Nelson, the developer) is one of the tallest buildings in the Garment District, built at a time when everyone seemed to be racing to be tallest. The building’s architect, H. Craig Severance, also designed 40 Wall Street – one of the “world’s tallest” contenders of the day. Alas, 60-story One Penn Plaza now looms over 46-story Nelson Tower from across 34th Street.

The distinctive white crown can be seen throughout the neighborhood; polychrome brick spandrels enhance the vertical lines.

Other prominent buildings designed by H. Craig Severance include 40 Wall Street (aka The Trump Building, Bank of Manhattan Trust Building), Taft Hotel, and the Montague-Court Building.

Nelson Tower Vital Statistics
  • Location: 450 Seventh Avenue between W 34th and W 35th Streets
  • Year completed: 1931
  • Architect: H. Craig Severance
  • Floors: 46
  • Style: Art Deco
Nelson Tower Suggested Reading

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Armeny Building

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Nassau and Fulton Streets meet at a busy corner, architecturally speaking: The NYC landmark Fulton Building is on the SW corner; the NYC landmark Bennett Building is on the NW corner; and the Armeny Building is on the SE corner. The Fulton and Armeny buildings were both designed by De Lemos & Cordes, the architects who gave us the Siegel-Cooper Buildings and Macy’s.

If the building looks top-heavy, with an odd transition between the sixth and seventh floors, don’t blame De Lemos & Cordes. In 1893 the owner decided to add two floors, and he hired a different architect for the job. Soon after, pen-maker Gyulo Armeny bought the building.

See the wonderful Daytonian in Manhattan blog for more fascinating history about the building and its tenants.

Today, the ground floor is occupied by a cafe; the upper floors are rental apartments (see the Street Easy listing for details).

Armeny Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 90 Nassau Street at Fulton Street
  • Year completed: 1889
  • Architect: De Lemos & Cordes
  • Floors: 8
  • Style: Romanesque
Armeny Building Suggested Reading

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Hotel Martinique

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Hotel Martinique is full of surprises. For starters, don’t let the French Renaissance style fool you: The name has nothing to do with the sunny French Caribbean island – it’s named for developer William R. H. Martin. And the showy Broadway and W 32nd Street facades are actually add-ons to the hotel – it started as a more modest property on W 33rd Street.

But if the style reminds you of the Plaza, that shouldn’t surprise: the two hotels have the same architect, Henry Janeway Hardenbergh.

Like the Plaza, Hotel Martinique has open space – Greeley Square – in front of it, to show off grand-scaled elements: A four-story mansard roof, tiers of balconies and gigantic ornaments.

Grandiose was appropriate for the time. Just down the block (where the Empire State Building now stands) were the original Waldorf and Astoria hotels (also designed by Hardenbergh).

Unfortunately, as the theater district moved north over the years, so did Martinique’s luxury clientele. By the late 1900s the property became run down; in the ’70s and ’80s it was a notorious homeless shelter and welfare hotel. At the time of its designation as a NYC landmark, the Hotel Martinique was being renovated as a Holiday Inn. Currently it is a Radisson property, popular with airline crews and tour groups. In keeping with W 32nd Street’s current identity – “Korea Way” – the property has a 24-hour Korean restaurant, Kum Gang San.

Hotel Martinique Vital Statistics
  • Location: 1260 Broadway at West 32nd Street
  • Year completed: 1898, 1903, 1911 (3 phases)
  • Architect: Henry Janeway Hardenbergh
  • Floors: 16
  • Style: French Renaissance
  • New York City Landmark: 1998
Hotel Martinique Suggested Reading

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84 William Street

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84 William Street was originally the headquarters of Royal Insurance Company (before it moved to 150 William Street). Now, it’s a residence hall shared by The New School and Pace University.

The base of the building – three stories now clad in polished black stone – were originally rusticated white marble; the clock over the rounded corner entrance was originally surrounded by ornate terra cotta.

In the photo gallery above, the black & white photos are from bound copies of Architecture (May 1907) in the Princeton University Library, digitized by Google Books. You can get a pdf version here (pdf link at far right on Google Books page). The century-old issues of Architecture are fascinating. The bookplate in this volume says it was donated by Mrs. Michel LeBrun – whose husband was part of the eminent architectural firm Napoleon LeBrun & Sons.

84 William Street Vital Statistics
  • Location: 84 William Street at Maiden Lane
  • Year completed: 1907
  • Architect: Howells & Stokes
  • Floors: 17
  • Style: Classical with English Baroque
84 William Street Suggested Reading

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New Yorker Hotel

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New Yorker Hotel was once an elegant celebrity-studded 2,500-room property – New York City’s largest when it opened in 1930. Convenient to Pennsylvania Station, it boasted five restaurants, a 42-chair barbershop, and platoons of snappily-uniformed bellboys.

Architecturally, the 43-floor Art Deco tower was (and is) quite plain; apart from size and shape, the building’s most prominent feature is the four-story, west-facing red “NEW YORKER” sign in the crown.

As the big-band era faded, so did New Yorker’s glitter; by the 1960s the hotel (then owned by Hilton) was in decline, financially, and closed in 1972. The World Unification Church (Rev. Sun Myung Moon) bought the hotel in 1975. By 1994 the church decided to re-open the building as a hotel – starting with 178 rooms and a $20 million renovation. Ramada granted a franchise in 2000. The hotel spent an additional $70 million on renovations 2007-2009; the property now has 900+ rooms on floors 19-40. In addition, Educational Housing Services uses five floors (9, 14, 16, 17, 18) for student housing.

New Yorker Hotel’s architects, the firm of Sugarman and Berger, have several other prominent New York City buildings, including: Gramercy Arms Apartments, Broadway Fashion Building, One Fifth Avenue, Millennium Towers North/Navarro Building, Paris Hotel/Paris Apartments.

New Yorker Hotel Vital Statistics
  • Location: 481 Eighth Avenue between W 34th and W 35th Streets
  • Year completed: 1930
  • Architect: Sugarman and Berger
  • Floors: 43
  • Style: Art Deco
New Yorker Hotel Suggested Reading

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Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse

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The Thurgood Marshall US Courthouse (originally United States Courthouse, Foley Square) was the last building designed by the famed Cass Gilbert, who died before the project’s completion. His son, Cass Gilbert, Jr., supervised the structure’s completion.

The 37-story skyscraper design marked a significant departure from other federal government buildings, which until then were all horizontal. The sprawling six-story base, however, blends in with surrounding landmarks.

The base and tower are faced in granite from Gilbert’s home state of Minnesota; the pyramidal roof is clad in gilded terra cotta.

The building was renamed Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in August 2001, honoring the first African American Supreme Court Justice, who had worked at the courthouse from 1961 to 1965 as a judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

The building completed a modernization project in 1992; at this writing (December 2012) it is going through a renovation/restoration that was supposed to have been completed in 2009, but seems to be never-ending.

Thurgood Marshall US Courthouse Vital Statistics
  • Location: 40 Centre Street at Foley Square
  • Year completed: 1936
  • Architect: Cass Gilbert
  • Floors: 37
  • Style: Classic Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1975
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1987
Thurgood Marshall US Courthouse Suggested Reading

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90 West Street Building

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The 90 West Street Building is an extraordinary building – for its architecture, and for surviving 9/11.

But to begin at the beginning: The West Street Building was built as an office building for shipping and rail companies – West Street in 1907 was on the Hudson Riverfront. The architect, Cass Gilbert, was a master of the tripartite design commonly used for tall buildings, but the West Street Building was different. Gilbert de-emphasized the base, emphasized the vertical lines of the shaft, and finished with a “Gothic fantasy” capital, including a three-story mansard roof. (Gilbert’s initial plans included a five-story tower at the top.) Where Gilbert’s earlier Broadway Chambers Building used terra cotta ornament in its upper stories, the West Street Building was almost entirely clad in terra cotta. Even the inside of the building used terra cotta, for fireproofing.

The building changed hands in 1923, and was modernized in 1933 – including a new Gilbert-designed lobby. In 1998 the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the West Street Building a landmark. It was still in use as an office building on Sept. 11, 2001, when debris from the South Tower of the World Trade Center rained down on 90 West Street.

The north (Cedar Street) facade was gashed, the roof was destroyed, and eight floors of the building were gutted or heavily damaged by fire. Although the building changed hands several times and was in limbo until 2003, the new owners were able to restore the shell thanks to the terra cotta fireproofing.

The three-year restoration converted the offices to 410 rental apartments. Contractors had to replace 75 percent of the north facade’s granite, and 7,853 pieces of terra cotta. Explore the Suggested Reading links for the full story on the restoration.

90 West Street Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 90 West Street between Albany and Cedar Streets
  • Year completed: 1907
  • Architect: Cass Gilbert
  • Floors: 23
  • Style: Gothic Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1998
  • National Register of Historic Places: 2007
90 West Street Building Suggested Reading

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