Tag Archives: commercial

Lefcourt Colonial Building

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Lefcourt Colonial Building was among the last buildings developed by Abraham Lefcourt, one of New York’s “rags to riches to rags” stories.

Now known as 295 Madison Avenue, the 45-story Neo-Gothic tower is an architectural landmark without the official title. The distinctive blue terra cotta medallions and gilded finials are visible from most of midtown. The street level retail space and lobby have been thoroughly modernized, but above that, the six-story base is richly decorated with terra cotta, false balustrades and layered brickwork.

Lefcourt Colonial was auctioned off in foreclosure just two years after it was completed, as the Great Depression demolished Abraham Lefcourt’s real estate and banking empire. And the day after the Lefcourt Colonial was sold – for $3.5 million – the Sevilla Towers faced the same fate. Sevilla Towers was the Lefcourt-built apartment hotel, completed but not yet opened, now known as the Essex House.

Lefcourt Colonial has something in common with the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and Statue of Liberty: You can buy a cast replica of the structure!

Lefcourt Colonial Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 295 Madison Avenue at E 41st Street
  • Year completed: 1930
  • Architect: Charles F. Moyer Co., Bark & Djorup
  • Floors: 45
  • Style: Neo-Gothic
Lefcourt Colonial Building Recommended Reading

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Socony-Mobil Building

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Socony-Mobil Building, aka 150 E 42nd Street, is another piece of New York City “love-it or hate-it” architecture. Landmarked in 2003 as an “impressive skyscraper” with “dramatic stainless steel arches,” it is also on some critics’ “ugliest buildings” list.

The original design, by John B. Peterkin, was a 30-story brick tower rising from a garden atop a three-story granite base. The developer, Galbreath Corporation, was unable to attract prime tenants, so in 1952 new architectural muscle was called in: Harrison & Abramovitz. Principals at that firm had worked with Galbreath on other projects and, incidentally, with the Rockefeller family during construction of New York icons Rockefeller Center and the United Nations.

The Harrison & Abramovitz-revised plan was for a 42-story tower with 13-story wings, clad in stainless steel. The firm was a pioneer in metal-clad architecture, earlier completing the Alcoa Building in Pittsburgh. Aluminum was considerably cheaper than stainless steel, but the steel industry agreed to match aluminum’s price for the opportunity to promote their product.

Why metal at all? Partly marketing – to give the building a modern identity. Partly structural – like glass, metal is lighter and thinner (leaves more rentable floor space) than masonry. Partly speed – metal panels go up faster than brick.

The 7,000 steel panels were embossed with four patterns (selected from more than 100): a rosette-like motif for above and below the windows; a large and small rosette to flank the windows, and two variants displaying a design of interlocking pyramids. These last panels are less wide and appear at the eighth floor where the ceiling is higher, or at the corners of the side elevations.

These controversial patterns were explained as necessary to stiffen the panels, diminish reflections, and create a self-cleaning surface (via wind and rain). The New Yorker‘s architecture critic, Lewis Mumford, called the design a “disaster” and said that the elevations looked as if they were “coming down with measles.”

The “self-cleaning” aspect wasn’t entirely accurate – the building was scrubbed with detergent in 1995.

The building’s four-story blue glass base, not nearly as controversial, is no less striking. The E 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue facades feature massive shallow eyebrow arches of stainless steel, resting on granite piers.

One wonders: Did the architects realize how well the Socony-Mobil Building frames the stainless steel spire of the Chrysler Building across the street? It’s a spectacular photo op!

Trivia: According to the building’s website, elevators to the top floors operate at 1,200 feet per minute, while elevators in the lowest floors operate at only 500 feet per minute.

Socony-Mobil Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 150 E 42nd Street between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue (full block though to E 41st Street)
  • Year completed: 1956
  • Architect: John B. Peterkin; Harrison & Abramovitz
  • Floors: 42
  • Style: Postmodern
  • New York City Landmark: 2003
Socony-Mobil Building Recommended Reading

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Croisic Building

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Croisic Building, aka 220 Fifth Avenue, is picturesque Gothic-styled architecture visible for blocks because of its two-story copper mansard roof. On closer inspection, the terra cotta gargoyles, eagles and other decoration are equally impressive.

The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership “Discover Flatiron” brochure claims that actress Ethel Barrymore resided at Croisic Building. That seems unlikely, because the building was always a commercial office building. However, some sources say the site was previously occupied by a Croisic apartment hotel, where she might have stayed (her Broadway debut was in 1895, before the current Croisic Building was erected). Other sources note that actor Richard Mansfield lived at the hotel.

Currently, Croisic Building seems to host a colony of architects – if you Google the address, the first pages are dominated by architect listings.

Trivia: According to New York Songlines, Croisic Building is across the street from the nonexistent 221 Fifth Avenue, home of Napoleon Solo, Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Croisic Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 220 Fifth Avenue at W 26th Street
  • Year completed: 1912
  • Architect: Frederick C. Browne
  • Floors: 22
  • Style: Neo-Gothic
  • New York City Landmark: 2001
Croisic Building Recommended Reading

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Citigroup Center

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Citigroup Center is remarkable New York architecture, with an engineering story even more dramatic than its photographs. The distinctive floating tower (renamed 601 Lexington Avenue in 2009) became a scary 59-story lesson for architects, engineers, public officials, lawyers and journalists worldwide.

Two elements make Citigroup (originally Citicorp) Center so distinctive: The southwest-facing 45-degree roof and the nine-story stilt base.

The signature angled roof, unmistakably visible for miles, was designed as a solar collector. A power gauge in the lobby once showed how much electricity was being generated by the sun. Apparently the solar panels were no threat to Con Ed – they’ve since been unplugged.

The stilt base was designed to turn a profit, not heads. It was almost a disaster.

The nucleus of the building’s site was owned by St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, which wanted to sell the land and use the profits to build a new church in a less valuable location. As Citicorp assembled the other pieces of the site, St. Peter’s discovered that they couldn’t locate a suitable new church site. Oops. Citicorp’s solution was to build a new church on the corner, and erect the office tower above the church. (See “Holdouts!: The Buildings That Got in the Way” by Andrew Alpern and Seymour Durst for the full story.)

With the church located on the corner, the tower supports had to be placed at the center of each wall, instead of at the corners. This, in turn, required special bracing to transfer the weight of the building to the piers.

There was a miscalculation. In determining the maximum loads, LeMessurier had considered the effect of winds perpendicular to the facades – but not “quartering” winds that would push against two sides simultaneously. Making matters worse, the steel contractor had substituted bolted joints for the much stronger (but $250,000 more expensive) welded joints that were specified. LeMessurier discovered the error and the bolt substitution a year after the building was completed. The engineer ordered wind tunnel tests and discovered to his horror that the building was vulnerable to winds over 70 m.p.h.

After urgent meetings with Citicorp, LeMessurier ordered two-inch-thick plates to be welded in place over the bolted joints. Welders worked every night for three months in a race against hurricane season. They almost lost: Hurricane Ella was headed for New York on Sept. 1, 1978 but fortunately it turned out to sea, averting a massive evacuation of the neighborhood. (The Red Cross had estimated 200,000 deaths if the building toppled.)

The massive repair project went virtually unreported for 17 years – a newspaper strike hit New York just as the repairs began; The New Yorker broke the story in 1995. Diane Hartley, a Princeton engineering student, was the hero in this drama. In the course of writing her thesis, she had questioned LeMessurier’s calculations – triggering his reevaluation of the design. LeMessurier’s unflinching disclosure of the problem is today used as a case study in professional ethics.

In 2002 the building was reinforced again – this time one of the massive base columns was encased in steel and copper to protect against a terrorist bomb blast.

The engineering crisis overshadowed Citicorp Center’s other impressive features: Double-decker elevators used interior space more efficiently; a tiered, sunken plaza beneath the building’s southwest corner provides space for sidewalk cafes and entry to the subway system; a 410-ton “tuned damper” system in the crown minimizes the building’s wind-induced swaying.

Drama notwithstanding, Citigroup Center is an impressive and attractive addition to New York’s architectural treasure chest, whether viewed from afar, up close or inside.

Citigroup Center Vital Statistics
  • Location: 601 Lexington Avenue between E 53rd and E 54th Streets
  • Year completed: 1977
  • Architect: Hugh Stubbins, Jr.
  • Structural Engineer: William LeMessurier
  • Floors: 59
  • Style: Postmodern
Citigroup Center Recommended Reading

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21 West Street

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21 West Street (aka Le Rivage), a slender 31-story Art Deco landmark, was converted from offices to apartments in 1998. The building complements the adjoining Downtown Athletic Club, designed by the same architects but built five years earlier.

When built in 1931 (at the same time as the Empire State Building), 21 West Street was across the street from the waterfront. Upper-story tenants then had an unobstructed view of the Hudson. Battery Park City was built on landfill placed in 1980 from excavation for the World Trade Center.

The exposed corners of the building are cantilevered, allowing corner windows. The building was promoted as “An office building with glass corners.” The original red window frames have been replaced by a more neutral tan matching the brick surrounds.

Starrett & Van Vleck used different-colored bricks to create a “woven” texture and to accentuate the building’s vertical lines. The Washington Street facade has setbacks at the 10th and 16th floors; all three facades have setbacks above the 21st, 26th, 29th and 30th floors.

21 West Street Vital Statistics
  • Location: 21 West Street at Morris Street
  • Year completed: 1931
  • Architect: Starrett & Van Vleck; conversion: SLCE Architects
  • Floors: 31
  • Style: Art Deco
  • New York City Landmark: 1998
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1999
21 West Street Recommended Reading

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Bowling Green Offices

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Bowling Green Offices is New York’s only “Hellenic Renaissance” style building.* It’s an architectural style invented by brothers William and George Ardsley as “a free but pure treatment of ancient Greek architecture.”

Whatever the style, it has crisp, lively ornamentation that stands out from its neighbors on “Steamship Row.” (When Bowling Green Offices was built, One Broadway was still a Queen Anne-style red brick building, and the Cunard Building had not yet been built; the Hudson River was just three blocks to the west.)

In plan, the building is U-shaped, with the base at the north, next to the Cunard Building. The light court in the middle of the U is aligned with the light court of One Broadway, the neighbor to the south.

This was the site of high drama: White Star Line, an early tenant, was besieged by worried relatives and friends of passengers aboard The Republic, which had been rammed by the Italian ship Florida in 1909. All passengers were safe in that incident, but three years later the offices were jammed again as news of the Titanic spread. Drama of a different sort hit the building in 1915: Seven elevators simultaneously fell; and seven months later, four elevators repeated the performance.

In 1920, the owners added a 17th floor and, at the north end of the building, a four-story tower.

Architect George Ardsley is better known as an author of 25 books on decorative art, and as a designer of pipe organs – including the famed Wanamaker organ in Philadelphia.

* The only other building in this style was the Layton Art Gallery in Milwaukee, now demolished.

Bowling Green Offices Vital Statistics
  • Location: 3-11 Broadway between Battery Place and Morris Street
  • Year completed: 1898
  • Architect: William James Audsley and George Ashdown Audsley
  • Floors: 21
  • Style: “Hellenic Renaissance”
  • New York City Landmark: 1995
Bowling Green Offices Recommended Reading

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Keuffel & Esser Company Building

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Keuffel & Esser Company Building, a New York landmark designed by De Lemos & Cordes, is well-preserved Renaissance Revival architecture on Fulton Street.

Like many commercial buildings in lower Manhattan, this has been converted (2010) to residential use – Compass Points Condominiums. “Compass Points” refers to two of Keuffel & Esser’s lines of business: Drafting/drawing instruments and surveying instruments.

Unlike many commercial buildings in lower Manhattan, this facade has been well preserved and restored. The Fulton Street side is the building’s most impressive facade, although the back of the building (42 Ann Street) is actually one story taller.

Architects Theodore W. E. De Lemos and August W. Cordes were successful designers of commercial buildings. Among their accomplishments are the Macy’s department store (original Broadway building), the Siegel-Cooper Department Store (now occupied by Bed Bath & Beyond) on Sixth Avenue, and the original Empire State Building (named for the Empire State Bank), 640 Broadway at Bleecker Street.

Keuffel & Esser Company Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 127 Fulton Street (block-through to Ann Street) between Nassau and William Streets
  • Year completed: 1893
  • Architect: De Lemos & Cordes
  • Floors: 8
  • Style: Renaissance Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 2005
Keuffel & Esser Company Building Recommended Reading

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Bayard-Condict Building

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Bayard-Condict Building is New York’s only sample of the Chicago School architecture of Louis H. Sullivan. The 12-story steel-framed, terra-cotta-clad office building was considered a skyscraper when it was completed in 1899. It still glows a warm white at the T intersection of Bleecker and Crosby Streets, thanks to painstaking restoration in 1996.

The six-year, $800,000 project repaired almost 1300 terra cotta tiles; only 30 had to be replaced. In addition, restoration architects Wank Adams Slaving Associates located one of the elaborate original store front column capitals that had been ripped out during an early renovation – and made copies to restore the ground floor to its original design.

Louis Sullivan’s architectural innovation was to abandon the custom of designing and ornamenting buildings in the styles of the past – Beaux Arts, Classical Revival, Romanesque, etc. Instead, he created forms that accentuated a building’s height and structure – thin steel beams instead of massive masonry columns. Decoration, too, was modernized and Americanized.

(It should be noted that the six angels crowning the Bayard-Condict Building were not Sullivan’s idea. They were ordered by Silas Alden Condict.)

The building’s financial form was not as well designed as its facade. New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission notes that though the structure’s original name was to be Bayard Building, none of the prominent Bayard family was financially involved. The point became moot when construction delays resulted in a recall of the mortgage: New owners Emmeline and Silas Condict changed the name to Condict Building. A scant five months after the tower’s completion, the Condicts sold it to Charles T. Wills, the builder – who revived the Bayard name.

Bayard-Condict Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 65 Bleecker Street at Crosby Street
  • Year completed: 1899
  • Architect: Louis H. Sullivan and Lyndon P. Smith
  • Floors: 12
  • Style: Chicago School
  • New York City Landmark: 1975
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1976
Bayard-Condict Building Recommended Reading

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700 Broadway

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700 Broadway seems to have an ongoing identity crisis. Originally the Schermerhorn Building*, it was designed by George B. Post as a store. A decade later the Romanesque Revival structure was converted to showrooms, offices, storage and workshops. Then it became lofts. The building was vacant and abandoned for most of the 1980s, until the National Audubon Society took it over as their national headquarters in 1989. Lincoln Property Company bought the building in 2006, but sold it in 2008 to the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg.

The building became “green” as the Audubon House: A two-year restoration project triple-insulated the structure’s walls and roof, rebuilt interior spaces to make better use of natural lighting, and installed high-efficiency lighting and heating/cooling systems, among other improvements.

When Weitz & Luxenberg took over, the firm discovered that routine facade maintenance was anything but routine: Years of subway vibrations and freeze/thaw cycles had created severe structural damage – major cracks had developed and parts of the walls were leaning out over the street. Another two-year restoration project ensued, rebuilding and repairing the walls, cornice, and terra cotta ornamentation.

Architect George B. Post also designed the landmark New York Stock Exchange and Brooklyn Historical Society.

* Not to be confused with the Schermerhorn Building just two blocks away at 380 Lafayette Street.

700 Broadway Vital Statistics
  • Location: 700 Broadway at E 4th Street
  • Year completed: 1891
  • Architect: George B. Post
  • Floors: 8
  • Style: Romanesque Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1999
700 Broadway Recommended Reading

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Potter Building

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Orlando Potter set out to make a fireproof building. It became “one of New York’s most significant surviving tall office buildings of the period prior to the full development of the skyscraper,” according to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. “Its brickwork is among the handsomest in New York City.”

The 1886 Potter Building replaced the ill-fated headquarters of the New York World, which had the distinction of burning up in the shortest time on record. Potter, the building’s owner, set out to make the replacement fireproof.

Iron framing and terra cotta fireproofing were key elements in the plan designed by architect Norris G. Starkweather. The structure represents an early phase of metal framing: Iron columns and joists supported the floors and interior of the building; the exterior walls supported themselves. (To bear the weight, those brick walls are 40 inches thick at the base and 20 inches thick at the top.) Terra cotta tiles surround the iron columns and joists, to protect them from the heat of a fire.

Abundant brownstone-colored terra cotta also decorated the red brick exterior. Starkweather combined four different architectural styles in the 11-story building (which was more than double the height of the previous structure). He emphasized vertical lines – counter to then-current practice. One critic condemned the resulting architecture as “coarse, pretentious, overloaded and intensely vulgar” and in its verticality, “spindling.” Starkweather died before the building was finished.

Potter liked the terra cotta so much, he founded New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co. and became one of the country’s largest producers.

Fast forward to 1973: After eight sales and 87 years, the Potter Building wound up in the hands of Pace College. The school planned to demolish this (and neighboring buildings) to build a large office tower. That project fizzled, and Pace sold the Potter Building in 1979 to 38 Park Row Associates – which converted the building to co-op loft apartments.

Remarkably, the new owners preserved and restored the exterior at great expense – 17 years before the building was designated a NYC landmark.

Potter Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 145 Nassau Street at Beekman Street (block-through to 38 Park Row)
  • Year completed: 1886
  • Architect: Norris Starkweather
  • Floors: 11
  • Style: mix of Queen Anne, neo-Grec, Renaissance Revival, and Colonial Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1996
Potter Building Recommended Reading

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