Tag Archives: lower manhattan

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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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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Trump SoHo

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After unveiling plans on prime time TV (The Apprentice, June 2006), The Donald’s Trump SoHo lurched from one controversy to another. Having survived the gauntlet, the 46-story mirror-glass box now commands the local skyline – almost daring other developers to match it.

Of course anything that wears the Trump name is a lightning rod for criticism, but Columbia University architecture professor Mitchell Joachim is quoted (Wikipedia) calling Trump SoHo “one of the ugliest buildings in New York.” Architectural Record‘s Michael Sorkin stated, “As urbanism, it’s vandalism.” Sorkin sides with Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and others who sued to block the building, claiming it violated zoning restrictions. Trump prevailed, claiming the building was for transients, not permanent residents.

Work was stopped briefly in December 2006 when the excavation unearthed human remains – graves from beneath the former Spring Street Presbyterian Church. Work stopped again in 2008 when a concrete form collapsed, killing a worker.

The condo/hotel’s developers and interior design firm sued and countersued over payment/performance issues, and some condo buyers claimed that they had been tricked into purchasing units.

The architect, Handel Architects, points out that guests will have fabulous views in all directions. “The intent of the building design is to express the internal, dynamic life of the hotel and its relationship to its urban surroundings. The public theater of the hotel public spaces are revealed through clear glass, while the more private functions are concealed behind translucent glass.”

Preservationists point out that 46-story Trump SoHo is blatantly out of scale with a neighborhood of six- to 15-story buildings.

On the other hand, it does provide an interesting kaleidoscopic effect for sky photos.

Trump SoHo Vital Statistics
  • Location: 246 Spring Street at Varick Street
  • Year completed: 2010
  • Architect: Handel Architects
  • Floors: 46
  • Style: Postmodern
Trump SoHo Suggested Reading

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17 State Street

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17 State Street is a stunning curved mirror-glass tower opposite Battery Park, framed in aluminum. The curved facade is not just for theatrics: that’s the shape of the lot, where State Street decides to switch from running north-south to east-west. The building floor plan resembles a quarter of a pie. Up close, you’ll also notice that there is no real first floor – just a glass-enclosed lobby (much like the Lever Building) and elevators; the building rests on cross-braced aluminum-clad columns.

The site has some history: it was the site of the Seaman’s Church Institute, and also the site of the house where Herman Melville was born, in 1819.

17 State Street Vital Statistics
  • Location: 17 State Street at Pearl Street
  • Year completed: 1988
  • Architect: Emery Roth & Sons
  • Floors: 41
  • Style: Postmodern
17 State Street Recommended Reading

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Alwyn Court Apartments

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Alwyn Court Apartments is undoubtedly the most decorated building in New York: Gray terra cotta covers every foot of the 12-story building. When the building opened in 1909 it was as opulent inside as it is outside. Each apartment (two to a floor) had 14 rooms and five baths – except for the 32-room apartment!

The building had a stroke of bad luck just months after opening, when only five apartments were occupied – a fire damaged some of the upper floors. The building was repaired and filled quickly, but dropped out of fashion in the late 1930s. And the Great Depression didn’t help. The bank foreclosed and reconfigured Alwyn Court as 75 much smaller apartments under direction of architect Louis H. Weeks. The main entrance on the corner was converted to retail space (now the Petrossian restaurant); the former service entrance on Seventh Avenue is now the main entrance.

As part of a co-op conversion, the building’s facade was cleaned and restored in 1980 by Beyer Blinder Belle, an architectural firm specializing in historic preservation.

The fire-breathing dragons at the corner entry (and elsewhere) are actually salamanders; a crowned salamander was the emblem of Francis I, King of France. (The same emblem graces Red House, another apartment building designed by Harde & Short.)

Alwyn Court Vital Statistics
  • Location: 180 W 58th Street at Seventh Avenue
  • Year completed: 1909
  • Architect: Harde & Short
  • Floors: 12
  • Style: French Renaissance
  • New York City Landmark: 1966
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1979
Alwyn Court Recommended Reading

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Standard Oil Building

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The Standard Oil Building began as a 10-story, 86-foot-wide structure in 1885 – just 21 years after the Civil War. But as Standard Oil grew, so did the building: In five stages, it extended north by 27 feet and south by almost 400 feet to Beaver Street and grew to 29 stories. The piece-by-piece construction was dictated by the pace of acquiring and demolishing adjoining properties. The building expanded again in 2011-2012 with the addition of a two-story gymnasium, which filled in a portion of the Beaver Street light court. The gymnasium was needed by one of the three NYC public schools that now occupy seven lower floors.

The shape of the Standard Oil Building is as complex as its construction history – the 16-story base is five-sided, with a curved transition to follow the curve of Broadway as it joins Whitehall Street. The 13-story tower seems misaligned with the building when viewed from the southwest (the best view), but it is actually aligned with the original building’s northern edge.

Material and stylistic details also reveal the piece-by-piece construction. For example, the original brick and granite shows on the New Street (eastern) facade; newer sections are clad in limestone. Some limestone blocks have rounded edges, others are sharply angled; different styles of columns and pilasters are used in the upper stories.

Standard Oil Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 26 Broadway at Beaver Street
  • Year completed: 1928
  • Architect: Thomas Hastings (Carrère and Hastings) with Shreve, Lamb and Blake
  • Floors: 29
  • Style: Renaissance Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1995
Standard Oil Building Recommended Reading

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Album: April, 2013

Collections, Manhattan, New Jersey, , , , , , ,

Highlights from photos shot in April, 2013 – but not yet added to a neighborhood or specific building gallery. Neighborhoods include Lower Manhattan, Greenwich Village, Midtown, Upper West Side – and Hoboken – Jersey City, New Jersey.

In this album:
  • Standard Oil Building (26 Broadway)
  • Isamu Noguchi’s Cube – At 140 Broadway / Liberty Street
  • One World Trade Tower
  • City Hall
  • Washington Square Arch
  • One Fifth Avenue framed by Washington Square Arch
  • Courant Institute (NYU) – 251 Mercer Street
  • 2 Cornelia Street – aka 333 Sixth Avenue
  • Bigelow Building – 412 Sixth Avenue
  • The Villager – 450 Sixth Avenue
  • 434 Sixth Avenue
  • 37 Washington Square West
  • 186 W 4th Street
  • 120 E 12th Street – Facade of St. Ann’s Church in front of NYU dorm
  • 126 E 12th Street
  • Fifth Avenue Building clock
  • 488 Eighth Avenue – former Bickford’s (the last two Bickford’s in NYC closed in 1982)
  • Bank entrance at New Yorker Hotel
  • Lerner Building – 478 Seventh Avenue
  • 480 Seventh Avenue
  • The Westin New York
  • LOFT marquee – Times Square Tower
  • The Lyric Theatre
  • The New York Times Building
  • Knickerbocker Hotel (1906) – aka 6 Times Square
  • HBO Building – 1100 Sixth Avenue
  • Fred F. French Building
  • The Manhasset – 300 W 109th / 301 W 108th Streets at Broadway
  • Ariel East – 2628 Broadway (between W 99th and W 100th Streets)
  • Ariel West – 2633 Broadway (between W 99th and W 100th Streets)
  • Paterno – 440 Riverside Drive – aka 3 Claremont Avenue
  • 410 Riverside Drive
  • Cathedral of St. John The Divine
  • 512 W 112th Street
  • Hendrik Hudson – 380 Riverside Drive
  • St. Anthony Hall – 434 Riverside Drive
  • 452 Riverside Drive
  • Oxford Hall – 454 Riverside Drive
  • The Riverside Church
  • Grant’s Tomb
New Jersey photos also in this album:
  • Erie Lackawana Hudson piers – Hoboken, NJ
  • New York Sunrise – view from Hoboken
  • Willow Avenue / Willow Terrace South – Hoboken
  • Clinton Street / Willow Terrace South – Hoboken
  • All Saints Episcopal Day School – Hoboken
  • Stevens Institute – Hoboken
  • Scotland Yard pub – Hoboken
  • Second Street – Jersey City, NJ
  • Newport – Newport/Jersey City

Blue

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Blue is much too young to be a landmark in the historical sense, but it has certainly made its mark in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

The towering (in the local context) cantilevered glass box, with its Mondrian-esque grid of blue and black, stands out like the proverbial sore thumb against the Lower East Side’s historic tenements (the Tenement Museum is three blocks away). Not long after the controversial apartments went up, New York City Council rezoned the East Village and Lower East Side, limiting building heights to preserve “neighborhood scale and character.”

The architect – charged, after all, with the task of creating a profitable building – said the structure was the logical result of maximizing square footage within the separate requirements of two lots. The cantilevered south section (103 Norfolk Street) rises over a commercial zone lot; the north section (105 Norfolk Street) is on a residential zone lot.

You must admit it’s an arresting design from any angle, even on a cloudy day.

Blue Vital Statistics
  • Location: 103 & 105 Norfolk Street between Delancey and Rivington Streets
  • Year completed: 2007
  • Architect: Bernard Tschumi Architects, SLCE Architects
  • Floors: 17
  • Style: Postmodern
Blue Recommended Reading
  • The New York Times Real Estate article (September 11, 2005)
  • Bernard Tschumi Architects website
  • Street Easy listing

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Mulberry House

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Mulberry House demonstrates how architects can play zoning restrictions to circumvent the intent of community planning boards. Here, zoning restrictions were written to preserve the character of the neighborhood. (Mulberry House is directly across the street from the landmark Puck Building.) But as the architects described in ArchDaily:

“Making a literal interpretation of code written for classical ornamentation allowed us to project our enclosure over the property line at 10% intervals for every 100 square feet. Maximizing the amount of projected area, while minimizing the overall depth of the enclosure became key criteria for our design. When coupled with material properties and fabrication constraints, these criteria began to define an approach that was a contemporary reinterpretation of brick detailing. By customizing a standard precast brick panel system, we were able to achieve maximum effect at minimum cost. The building then becomes veiled by an textured wrapper around the street walls in contrast with the simplicity of the inner core.”

Whether you like SHoP Architects’ design or not, you have to admire the texture of the brickwork and its construction. Look up along the building’s southern edge on Mulberry Street, to see the brick-on-concrete panels.* And if you like to see how things are made, Mulberry House’s construction is richly documented on line – browse the Recommended Reading links below for very detailed views and explanations.

Alas, the original developer bailed out on this condo project when the real estate market tanked; the new developer has reconfigured Mulberry House as a rental building. The eight full-floor apartments start at $10,500/month; the one triplex penthouse is reportedly $25,000/month.

* In most modern construction, a steel and/or concrete frame supports the building; brick is only a decorative/protective skin that is attached to the frame.

Mulberry House Vital Statistics
  • Location: 290 Mulberry Street between E Houston and Prince Streets
  • Year completed: 2013
  • Architect: SHoP Architects
  • Floors: 13
  • Style: Postmodern
Mulberry House Recommended Reading

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One Kenmare Square

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One Kenmare Square is a modern addition to SoHo, with a wavy brick and glass face that breaks the building line – as if its towering form and made-up address wasn’t enough to make it stand out. (Kenmare Square no longer exists – the park of that name was renamed in 1987.)

Except for the undulating Lafayette Street facade, the design is minimalist: No decoration softens the industrial-grey brick. The ribbon windows are reminiscent of the Starrett-Lehigh Building (warehouse/office complex) in West Chelsea.

One Kenmare Square Vital Statistics
  • Location: 210 Lafayette Street at Kenmare Street
  • Year completed: 2005
  • Architect: Gluckman Mayner Architects
  • Floors: 12
  • Style: postmodern
One Kenmare Square Recommended Reading

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