Tag Archives: commercial

Johnston Building

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Johnston Building, aka NoMad Hotel, was built in 1903 as a store and office building. It is notable for its limestone facade – an expensive finish for an office building – and for its corner tower and cupola. Last but not least, it is also notable (for 1903) that the owner was a woman: Caroline H. Johnston.

After a lengthy conversion (2008-2012) by Sydell Group, the building is now a Parisian-inspired boutique hotel with interiors designed by Jacques Garcia.

Sydell Group also operates the Ace Hotel – the former Breslin Hotel – located one block to the north.

Johnston Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 1770 Broadway at W 28th Street
  • Year completed: 1903; 2012 (conversion)
  • Architect: Schickel & Ditmars; Stonehill & Taylor (conversion), Jacques Garcia (interiors)
  • Floors: 12
  • Style: Beaux Arts
  • New York City Landmark: 2001 (Madison Square North Historic District)
Johnston Building Recommended Reading

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St James Building

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St James Building was among the earliest highrise office buildings in the NoMad neighborhood, replacing the St. James Hotel. It is considered among Bruce Price’s most important designs, after Quebec City’s Château Frontenac Hotel.

The St James Building was a favorite home for architects, including Daniel Burnham, Henry Pelton and John Russell Pope – as well as Bruce Price. Remarkably, after more than 115 years the building is still home to dozens of architects.

The steel-framed building follows the traditional base-shaft-capital design; the base and capital are of limestone, with prominent arched windows and bays; the shaft is of brick indented to simulate the deep rusticated joints of stone. Elaborate and massive terra cotta decoration is used throughout.

Architect Bruce Price has another claim to fame: Price invented, patented, and built the parlor bay-window cars for the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Boston and Albany Railroad. (See Wikipedia.)

Historical Note: Washington didn’t sleep here, but Golda Meir worked here in the early ’30s according to “All Around the Town: Amazing Manhattan Facts and Curiosities, Second Edition (Empire State Editions).”

St James Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 1133 Broadway at W 26th Street
  • Year completed: 1898
  • Architect: Bruce Price
  • Floors: 16
  • Style: Beaux Arts
  • New York City Landmark: 2001 (Madison Square North Historic District)
St James Building Recommended Reading

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Chanin Building

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Chanin Building is among New York’s most prominent Art Deco towers (and cater-corner from the most prominent, the Chrysler Building). It was designed by Sloan & Robertson, who also designed the Art Deco Graybar Building, on the next block.

The Chanin Building’s base and its lobby are boldly decorated with terra cotta and bronze. The first story, dedicated to retail shops, is clad in Belgian black marble. That is topped by a bronze frieze depicting evolution from low marine life forms to fish and birds. Two floors of bronze-framed casement windows, set between limestone piers, come next. The fourth floor is clad in a floral patterned terra cotta band. Fourth floor windows align with the bays above, creating vertical lines to emphasize the structure’s height.

One critic – Carter B. Horsley writing in City Review – observed, “It is interesting to note that the Chrysler Building has the city’s greatest crown but a rather prosaic base. Imagine if it had the base of the Chanin Building, or vice versa?”

Above the base, the Chanin Building’s form was largely dictated by New York City’s 1916 zoning law, which required setbacks proportional to the width of the facing streets. From the 17th to the 29th floor the building tapers to a 22-story slab tower, capped by a four-story buttressed crown. The 50th and 51st floors originally held a theater (one line of Chanin’s businesses), and the 54th floor had an open-air observatory. The tower was once (briefly) the third-tallest in New York. Now, it is rarely appreciated.

Chanin the owner was every bit as impressive as Chanin the building – you can read more in the Landmarks Commission’s designation report and in The New York Times article.

Chanin Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 122 E 42nd Street at Lexington Avenue
  • Year completed: 1929
  • Architect: Sloan & Robertson
  • Floors: 56
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 1978
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1980
Chanin Building Recommended Reading

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UN Plaza

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One UN Plaza and Two UN Plaza are the gleaming angular glass buildings opposite the United Nations on First Avenue, between E 44th and E 45th Streets. The towers are sculpture as much as they are buildings – their angled planes talk to each other and ignore the neighborhood. Their only connection, via color and material, is with the United Nations across First Avenue.

(A third building – Three UN Plaza – was built later in a different style and will be covered separately.)

Wrapped around the United States Mission to the UN and Uganda House, the buildings contain the One UN Plaza (formerly Millennium UN Plaza) hotel and United Nations offices space. The hotel occupies the top 11 floors of each tower and has a single entrance on E 44th Street. Offices occupy the lower floors (except for ground floor shops) and have separate entries in each tower.

One UN Plaza Vital Statistics
  • Location: First Avenue at E 44th Street
  • Year completed: 1975
  • Architect: Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates
  • Floors: 39
  • Style: Postmodern
Two UN Plaza Vital Statistics
  • Location: 329 E 44th Street (through to E 45th Street)
  • Year completed: 1981
  • Architect: Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates
  • Floors: 39
  • Style: Postmodern
UN Plaza Recommended Reading

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Century Building

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Century Building, since 1995 a Barnes & Noble store, was also associated with publishing when it was built in 1881. Century Publishing Company leased the fifth floor and hung its sign outside – which led to the name. Retailer Aaron Arnold (Arnold Constable Department Store) built the landmark as a speculative venture – no prime tenant was signed.

The NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission cited the structure as “a rare surviving Queen Anne style commercial building.” The Century Building was vacant at the time that the Commission designated it a New York City landmark. Barnes & Noble took it over in 1995, according to Daytonian in Manhattan.

The two-story oriel windows and gambrel roof are quite picturesque from Union Square Park. Although the Century Building extends through to E 18th Street, that facade is relatively plain.

Century Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 33 E 17th Street between Broadway and Park Avenue South
  • Year completed: 1881
  • Architect: J. William Schickel
  • Floors: 7
  • Style: Queen Anne
  • New York City Landmark: 1986
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1997
Century Building Recommended Reading

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New York Times Building

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New York Times Building, called the ugliest building in New York City by the American Institute of Architects, is nonetheless impressive in many ways. The exposed frame, ceramic-rod screen, monumental logo and sheer height make it stand out even in a neighborhood filled with buildings that scream for attention.

(Some critics say it was crazy for the Times to spend nearly half a billion dollars for a new headquarters (58% ownership of the $850 million cost) while the paper’s fortunes are shrinking – but that’s neither an architectural nor an aesthetic argument.)

The New York Times Building’s innovative ceramic rod screen – which dramatically cuts energy costs by blocking solar heat – became an embarrassment: Four climbers (so far) have used the screen as a ladder to scale the 52-story facade. The first climber said he did it to protest global warming: Ironic, as his action discourages use of this technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The high-tech lobby, meanwhile, revives and updates an old newspaper tradition: the news is on display for passers-by.

New York Times Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 620 Eighth Avenue between W 40th and W 41st Streets
  • Year completed: 2007
  • Architect: Renzo Piano Building Workshop and FXFOWLE Architects
  • Floors: 52
  • Style: postmodern
New York Times Building Recommended Reading

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Standard Hotel

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Standard Hotel, as they are fond of saying, is not your standard hotel. Perched 30 feet above the High Line park, it’s shaped like an open book – a book that’s also open in the sense that the facades are transparent (not mirrored or tinted) glass.

All that glass makes rooms seem larger than they are, but sometimes guests forget(?) to close the drapes, leading the NY Post to dub the Standard Hotel the “eyeful tower.”

The building’s design and location presented some unique engineering challenges. Engineers had to cope with the soil conditions (landfill), flood resistance, a high water table, and strict limits on how close to the existing High Line structure they could build. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat case study describes how Ennead Architects met those challenges.

For all of the Standard Hotel’s non-standard features, the property did try to blend in at street level: The Standard Grill restaurant was constructed with salvaged brick, in a style that closely mimics the meatpacking warehouses of the neighborhood. You’d never guess that it was new construction.

Standard Hotel Vital Statistics
  • Location: 848 Washington Street at W 13th Street
  • Year completed: 2009
  • Architect: Ennead Architects (formerly Polshek Partnership)
  • Floors: 18
  • Style: Postmodern
Standard Hotel Recommended Reading

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Jane Hotel

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Jane Hotel, built in 1908 as the American Seamen’s Friend Society Sailors’ Home and Institute, once hosted Titanic survivors. It was designed by William A. Boring, who was also the architect for Ellis Island’s immigration station. Restored in 2008, the Jane Hotel now hosts financial survivors – in tiny rooms with shared bath priced as low as $79 per night.

The distinctive octagonal tower originally had a beacon, to welcome sailors. The beacon is gone, but other nautical connections remain. For starters, Jane Hotel rooms are called cabins. How tiny? A “remarkably cozy” 50 square feet. Some with bunk beds. The New York Times quipped, Popeye Slept Here and Now Olive Oyl Can, Too. the developers, Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode, also run the Maritime Hotel – a former sailor’s hostelry run by the National Maritime Union.

In 1931 the Home and Institute was downgraded to annex status, and in 1944 the YMCA took over the property, removing the beacon in 1946. Also in 1946, YMCA sold the building; it changed hands several more times over the years, finally becoming Riverview Hotel before MacPherson and Goode took over. (See the Corbin Plays portfolio for historic photos of the building with beacon. The PreservationNation Blog has current interior photos.)

In the 1970s and until 2005, the Jane Street Theater called this home.

The Greenwich Village waterfront now attracts joggers instead of sailors. The Jane Hotel is an architectural reminder of New York’s history as a seaport – and a haven (says the hotel) for travelers “with more dash than cash.”

Jane Hotel Vital Statistics
  • Location: 113 Jane Street at West Street (aka 505 West Street)
  • Year completed: 1908
  • Architect: William A. Boring
  • Floors: 6
  • Style: neo-Classical
  • New York City Landmark: 2000
Jane Hotel Recommended Reading

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Whitehall Building

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Whitehall Building is actually two buildings: the original 1904 20-story structure facing Battery Place, and a 1910 32-story annex directly behind that, facing West Street.

(A third building, added to the complex in 1972, is not included in this gallery. Now named One Western Union International Plaza, that 20-story office building was built in a completely different style and is now under different ownership.)

Whitehall Building was a little bit of a gamble – its location was two blocks off Broadway, the most desirable address. But the park across the street guaranteed unimpeded views; with lower-than-Broadway rents, the building was an immediate success. The owners, Robert and William Chesebrough, started buying up adjacent lots for an annex even before the first building was completed. (Robert Chesebrough was the inventor of Vaseline Petroleum Jelly.)

Henry J. Hardenbergh was the architect for the Whitehall Building. Among his prior commissions were the Dakota Apartments (1884), the original Waldorf (1895) and Astoria (1897) hotels, and the Western Union Telegraph Building (1884). His design for the Whitehall was quite colorful for the times and the location, including five different shades of brick and stone in the Battery Place facade.

The records don’t say why Hardenbergh wasn’t selected to design the annex – but it may have been because he was busy designing the Plaza Hotel. In any case, Clinton & Russell was selected for the job. Their annex, Greater Whitehall, was much larger than Whitehall Building; in fact, it was the largest office building in New York at the time.

The upper floors (14-31) of both buildings have now been converted to rental apartments – Ocean Luxury Residences.

Whitehall Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 17 Battery Place
  • Year completed: 1904; 1910 (annex, aka Greater Whitehall)
  • Architect: Henry J. Hardenbergh; Clinton & Russell (annex)
  • Floors: 20; 31 (annex)
  • Style: neo-Renaissance
  • New York City Landmark: 2000
Whitehall Building Recommended Reading

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One Broadway

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One Broadway is a building within a building: Strip away the 1921 Neo-Classical white limestone skin and you’ll find a red brick and brownstone Queen Anne-style structure built in 1887.

(For a rare look at the “before,” take a look at Archiseek‘s article.)

Also beneath the facade, you’ll find layers of history – condensed here from the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission report:

The 1887 building, built on the site of a home reputedly used by General Washington, was named the Washington Building. It was built for Cyrus W. Field, whose Atlantic Telegraph Company laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable. The architect, Edward H. Kendall, also designed the Gorham Mfg. Building and the Methodist Book Concern.

J.P. Morgan’s International Mercantile Marine Company (IMMC) bought the building in 1919; Walter B. Chambers re-designed the structure inside and out. With competitor Cunard Line just a few doors up Broadway, the International Mercantile Marine Company Building became the anchor for “Steamship Row.” IMMC operated numerous subsidiaries, including Titanic‘s White Star Line. By 1940 internal mergers reduced the company to United States Lines, which took over the building from 1941 to 1979. Allstate Life Insurance Co. bought the building at a foreclosure sale in 1992 and financed a $2 million restoration in 1993-1994.

The building is now occupied by a branch of Citibank and Kenyon & Kenyon LLP – an intellectual property law firm.

One Broadway Vital Statistics
  • Location: One Broadway at Battery Place
  • Year completed: 1887; reclad, 1921
  • Architect: Edward Hale Kendall; Walter B. Chambers (remodeling)
  • Floors: 12
  • Style: Neo-Classical
  • New York City Landmark: 1995
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1991
One Broadway Recommended Reading

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