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136-627: The American Surety Building (also known as the Bank of Tokyo Building or 100 Broadway ) is an office building and early skyscraper at Pine Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City , across from Trinity Church . The building was designed in a Neo-Renaissance style by Bruce Price with a later expansion by Herman Lee Meader . It is 388 feet (118 m) tall, with either 23 or 26 stories. It

272-458: A base, middle section and the roof line. This tripartite design was intended both to emulate classical columns, and reflect the functions of the different parts of the skyscraper. The central court could form a simple courtyard, but many companies preferred to roof over the courtyard with glass to produce an atrium for shops and restaurants. Rents for these shops were up to five or six times that for office space, and made an important difference to

408-756: A block to the south. The building is adjacent to Trinity Church , Trinity's churchyard, and the Trinity and United States Realty Buildings to the west; the Equitable Building to the north; 14 Wall Street to the east; and 1 Wall Street to the south. Entrances to the New York City Subway 's Wall Street station , served by the 4 and ​ 5 trains, are adjacent to the building. The lot covers about 15,000 square feet (1,400 m), and measures 125 feet (38 m) on Pine Street and 123 feet (37 m) on Broadway. None of

544-506: A building to maximize the amount of space that could be rented, while still being architecturally consistent on the outside. Nine architects entered this competition, including Bruce Price, Napoleon LeBrun , George B. Post , Carrère and Hastings , and McKim, Mead & White . A separate competition was held for the decorative figures, which Rhind won. In February 1894, the company announced that Price had been selected to build American Surety's 20-story headquarters. Price's design called for

680-450: A busy businessman. At the same time, the more lavish ground floor designs would make the building stand out to passers-by and pull in the necessary business for a successful commercial building. This community also saw close collaboration between architects, specialist structural engineers, and building contractors emerge on the new skyscraper projects. Historically the industry had been dominated by individuals and small firms who combined

816-551: A classical style, such as the Mutual Life, Atlantic Mutual , and Broad Exchange Buildings , all designed by Clinton and Russell . Others broke new ground, including the Flatiron Building which opened in 1903 near Madison Square. The Chicago firm of Daniel Hudsdon Burnham designed the 307 feet (94 m) high, 21 story structure; the unusually shaped, narrow building needed particularly strong wind bracing, while

952-412: A colonnade; a parapet between the 20th and 21st stories with gilded metal; and a large projecting stone cornice atop the 21st floor. The original gilded parapet and the sculptures were removed in the 1920–1922 expansion, and a cornice with anthemia was installed atop the two-story penthouse. The southern elevation of the 20th and 21st floors, from Price's original design, remains partially visible from

1088-702: A common height: "horizontal visual unity". In the aftermath of the Exposition, many of these advocates joined with the Beaux-Arts movement to form the City Beautiful movement , proposing low-rise cities with wide boulevards, built in a classical style. These critics condemned New York's skyscrapers, Montgomery Schuyler describing how they had produced a "horribly jagged sierra" of a city skyline and complaining that no modern skyscraper had turned out to be an architectural success. Charles Lamb argued that

1224-658: A favorable impression of its operations" in the general public. This had been a trend since 1870, with the completion of the former Equitable Life Building just north of the American Surety site. In the second half of the century, many firms in the Financial District were developing structures north of the neighborhood's traditional center of commerce at Wall Street . By 1865, the three-block of stretch of Broadway between Liberty and Wall Streets had seven buildings for banks or insurance companies, including

1360-702: A fire in 1901 that damaged the Weather Bureau's quarters. In April 1920, the American Surety Company indicated its intention to acquire the Schermerhorn Building, and revealed plans for a $ 2.5 million annex to the American Surety Building (equivalent to $ 29 million in 2023) to be finished by 1921. The company then bought the Schermerhorn Building outright for $ 1.5 million, and started work on

1496-544: A five-story pyramidal roof to his plans, similar to St Mark's Campanile in Venice . The campanile, as well as the progressively recessed windows, had been inspired by a failed plan for a structure opposite City Hall , which would have housed the New York Sun . Work on the foundations began in early 1894 and was completed by that November. The foundation work took eight to nine months, representing about forty percent of

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1632-439: A force of 80,000 pounds per foot (120,000 kg/m) on the foundation. If the walls had been load-bearing, then they would have needed to be 84 inches (2,100 mm) thick, imposing a force of 150,000 pounds per foot (220,000 kg/m) on the foundation. Due to the use of non-load-bearing curtain walls, an additional 87 square feet (8.1 m) of usable space was provided in the width of each 20-foot (6.1 m) bay, resulting in

1768-482: A grand style. The Unity Building , for example, was reported as including "Numidian, Alps, Green and Sienna marbles ... an artistic screen of glass and bronze ... a marble balcony" alongside "Corinthian columns with finely carved capitals, gold-leaf and silver chandeliers, and silver-plated latticework" on the elevators. The aim was to project a sense of prosperity and solid financial credentials, which in turn would attract tenants willing to pay high rents. For

1904-502: A law to limit new buildings to a maximum of 123 feet (37 m), effectively banning the construction of skyscrapers. The cities of Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. similarly introduced height restriction laws to limit skyscraper construction. The decisive factor in favor of change in Chicago, however, was the economic slowdown in the early 1890s, which gave way to the financial panic of 1893 . The recession, combined with

2040-561: A partnership with the mechanical arts. Their practices tended to be smaller, resembling atelier style workshops. Structural engineers in New York took longer to build up a strong professional role there, a trend reflected in the lower engineering quality of many early skyscrapers in the city. The New York style emphasized stunning height and a somewhat eclectic use of architectural features from other periods, creating an energetic, flamboyant appearance. Towers were common, making best use of

2176-535: A pattern first invented in the Oriel Chambers building in England in 1864. This allowed the average small company to rent a small amount of space using one or two offices, but held out the option for future expansion by renting additional office cubicles if required at a later date. A skyscraper office relied on natural sunlight from the windows but if necessary was dimly lit from electric desk-top lamps. By

2312-486: A planned build became known. The properties at the front of the site would typically be bought first, so if news broke of the skyscraper then those owning property at the back of the plot would have little choice but to sell anyway. The funding for skyscraper developments was normally lent by banks, insurance companies, or raised through bonds sold through a specialised bond house, with the latter becoming increasingly popular after World War I. Efforts were made to improve

2448-430: A profit of $ 2,000 per year from the rental of the additional space. Foundation costs were also reduced, although the use of a steel frame canceled out some of the cost savings, since steel was slightly costlier than masonry. The usage of both curtain and bearing walls was not common at the time of the building's construction. The American Surety Building had more than 400 rooms upon completion, accessed by six elevators and

2584-416: A record for the period. Improved windbracing techniques were introduced. The use of pneumatic caissons in skyscraper foundations grew more advanced; in the construction of the 1908 Manhattan Municipal Building they were successfully sunk 144 feet (44 m) below the surface, with specially conditioned workers operating in shifts with constant medical support. New technologies were also introduced within

2720-478: A relatively simple building with a flat roof, and took inspiration from his previous commission for 280 Broadway . This appealed to the American Surety Company, because the site had supposedly cost $ 1.435 million and the company planned to spend another $ 1.25 million on construction. The cost was still relatively high; Price had convinced the American Surety Company that all four facades needed to be decorated because of its high visibility. Price had conceived

2856-399: A small factory to visitors, and ultimately expanded to employ 180 staff. The resulting Chicago school produced large, solid-looking skyscrapers, built with a common appearance and to a common height. The result was usually a box-like palazzo , illuminated with a large light court, ideally, if space allowed, in the center. The outside of the building was commonly divided into three parts:

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2992-405: A spiral staircase. The elevators moved at 400 feet per minute (120 m/min), which was then considered very rapid. There were two water tanks , one each on the 10th and 21st floors, which had a cumulative capacity of 50,000 U.S. gallons (190,000 L; 42,000 imp gal) and supplied water to fire hoses on each floor. The 21st floor was used solely as a utility floor. The 10th-floor tank

3128-442: A very high proportion of usable – and thus rentable – floor space, with a great deal of light and a flexible floor plan that could be subdivided for different tenants. Up-to-date fittings were installed to encourage a high-class of tenants, including the world's fastest elevators, safety features, and a swimming pool. Gilbert adopted the Beaux-Arts style, using accented terracotta and glass to emphasis vertical lines, elegantly echoing

3264-626: Is a waste". Monadnock Block , the tallest load-bearing brick building ever constructed, is an example of such a strict approach. By the 1890s, Chicago architects were producing a solution to this problem, creating a new architectural style, often termed the "Chicago school of architecture". The school included architects such as Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler , Jenney, John Root , and William Holabird and Martin Roche , whose designs combined architectural aesthetic theory with practical commercial sense. They favoured placing rich, ornate designs on

3400-542: Is academic disagreement over which building should be considered the first skyscraper. Identifying the first "true skyscraper" is not straightforward, and various candidates exist depending on the criteria applied. George Post's New York Equitable Life Building of 1870, for example, was the first tall office building to use the elevator, while his Produce Exchange building of 1884 made substantial structural advances in metal frame design. The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, opened in 1885, is, however, most often labeled

3536-468: Is located on Broadway and consists of a two-story Ionic -style colonnade supporting a seven- bay -wide portico ; this portico was five bays wide prior to the expansion. The third-story windows above the portico are flanked by six classical figures designed by J. Massey Rhind . Two more figures, in the same style as Rhind's originals, were added in the expansion. At the top of the colonnade is an elaborate frieze . The Broadway facade also has an entrance to

3672-428: Is not a matter of art, but of business. A building must pay, or there will be no investor ready with the money to meet its cost. This is at once the curse and the glory of American architecture." George Hill echoed the theme, condemning unnecessary features on the basis that "every cubic foot that is used for purely ornamental purposes beyond that needed to express its use and to make it harmonize with others of its class,

3808-461: The 4 and ​ 5 trains), and a building representative said in 1897 that the foundation was designed "with a view of withstanding the effect" of a subway tunnel. Thirty-two structural columns were used in the building, which each carry between 584 and 1,280 short tons (521 and 1,143 long tons; 530 and 1,161 t). The building utilized portal wind bracing , which could sustain winds of at least 82 miles per hour (132 km/h); this

3944-612: The Chrysler and the Empire State Buildings each claiming new records, reaching 1,046 feet (319 m) and 1,250 feet (380 m) respectively. With the onset of the Great Depression , the real estate market collapsed, and new builds stuttered to a halt, ending this era of skyscraper construction. Popular and academic culture embraced the skyscraper through films, photography, literature, and ballet, seeing

4080-553: The Italian Renaissance inspired palazzo -style of architecture popular in England, and rose no more than five or six stories. New York did not have any restrictions on the height of buildings, but in practice low-rise buildings were the norm, at least until 1865, with the tallest buildings being the city's churches. New York's population tripled between 1840 and 1870, and property values soared, increasing by more than 90 percent between 1860 and 1875. Further west,

4216-549: The Monadnock Building , combined elements of both the newer and older styles, but generally Chicago rapidly adopted steel structures as a flexible and effective way to produce a range of tall buildings. Structural engineers specializing in the steel frame design began to establish practices in Chicago. There was a boom in skyscraper construction in Chicago from 1888 onwards. By 1893, Chicago had built 12 skyscrapers between 16 and 20 stories tall, tightly clustered in

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4352-792: The New York Stock Exchange rented about 25,000 square feet (2,300 m) of offices at 100 Broadway, one block away from the New York Stock Exchange Building , where there was a shortage of space. During the early 1990s, the Bank of Tokyo vacated 150,000 square feet (14,000 m) of space it occupied at 100 Broadway, moving to 1251 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan . The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated

4488-649: The Railway Exchange , the Peoples Gas and the Illinois Continental and Commercial Bank Buildings were each substantial, quarter-block wide palazzo cubes of common height, their facades divided into a classical tripartite design, and sporting classical columns and other features. Despite the apparent uniformity of design, individual buildings varied considerably in the detail of their designs in effort to express their particular identities,

4624-1272: The Wainwright Building , Wilder Building , and Guaranty Building . Early examples on the West Coast include the Old Chronicle Building and the Call Building in San Francisco , as well as the Luzon Building in Tacoma, Washington . Early skyscrapers outside the United States include the APA Building (1889) in Melbourne , Australia, the Ryōunkaku (1890) in Tokyo , Japan and the Witte Huis (1898) in Rotterdam ,

4760-555: The palazzo style made popular in the previous decade. Chicago had hosted the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, a massive international event which had excited interest in the themes of classical architecture and well-designed city landscapes. Chicago also had extensive discussions in 1909 about the potential for designing large parts of the city, the Burnham Plan of Chicago . The resulting skyscrapers reflected these debates:

4896-644: The 1830s and spread to U.S. factories and hotels by the 1840s. Elevators using hoist ropes, however, could only function effectively in low-rise buildings, and this limitation encouraged the introduction of the hydraulic elevator in 1870, even though early models contained dangerous design flaws. By 1876 these problems had been resolved, providing a solution for servicing the early skyscrapers. New environmental technologies in heating, lighting, ventilation and sanitation were also critical to creating taller buildings that were attractive to work in. Central heating could not be easily extended to serve larger buildings; in

5032-424: The 1850s, a system using low-pressure steam and steam-operated fans became adopted in the construction of the later skyscrapers. Many U.S. buildings were lit by gas , but this carried safety risks and was difficult to install in taller buildings. As an alternative, electric lights were installed from 1878 onwards, powered by basement generators. Ventilation was also a challenge, as smoke drifting into offices from

5168-581: The 1880s, bringing these ideals and standards with them. Applying contemporary Beaux-Arts standards to early skyscrapers, however, was not straightforward. The buildings that the Beaux-Arts movement influenced were typically much shorter and broader than any skyscraper, as it was difficult to accurately reproduce the style in a tall, narrow building. Skyscrapers were also primarily commercial buildings, and economics as well as aesthetics had to play an important part in their design. The architectural writer Barr Ferree noted in 1893 that "current American architecture

5304-489: The 1890s, with female employees becoming more common. The percentage of female clerical workers in Chicago, for example, increased from 11 percent in 1880 to 21 percent by 1890, reaching 30 percent by 1900. Various moral concerns were raised about men and women mixing in such offices, which were characterized as being masculine spaces, full of tobacco smoke and profanity and therefore unsuitable for women. The new female workers typically worked as typists or stenographers , using

5440-512: The 19th century, which included such design elements as wind bracing and crucially the use of an iron-framed skeleton , further differentiated skyscrapers from earlier tall secular buildings, such as those in the Old Town of Edinburgh . Development of these skyscrapers was concentrated in the American cities of New York and Chicago , but was not entirely exclusive to them; precursors of

5576-488: The 20th floor windows were recessed by 20 inches (510 mm); this allowed sunlight to illuminate the upper stories while utilizing entasis for architectural effect. These windows were subsequently replaced with sash windows . Unlike previous buildings such as the Park Row Building , which typically only had one decorated facade, the American Surety Building had all of its facades decorated. The main entrance

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5712-470: The 26th century BC at a height of 481 feet (147 m), would remain the tallest structure on Earth for a millennia until it was surpassed in the Middle Ages. The term "skyscraper" was first used in the 1780s to describe a particularly tall horse, before later being applied to, among other things, the sail at the top of a ship's mast , tall hats and bonnets, tall men, and a ball that was hit high into

5848-542: The 4th and 15th floors. A two-story penthouse is set back above the 21st floor. The Broadway and Pine Street elevations were both seven bays wide before an expansion in 1920–1922 brought the building to 11 bays on both sides. Price said that he wanted to "design a monumental structure", and as such he intended the facade to resemble "a campanile with four pilaster faces, the seven flutes represented by seven rows of windows". The windows on upper stories were originally progressively recessed by 1 inch (25 mm) per story, so that

5984-569: The 792-foot (241 m) Woolworth Building . Though these skyscrapers were commercial successes, criticism mounted as they broke up the ordered city skyline and plunged neighboring streets and buildings into perpetual shadow. Combined with an economic downturn, this led to the introduction of zoning restraints in New York in 1916. In the interwar years , skyscrapers spread to nearly all major U.S. cities, while in total of around 100 were built in some other Western countries (like Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom etc.) and

6120-466: The American Surety Building uses an interior skeleton of structural steel, as well as a cantilevered steel structure for its foundations . The building was erected between 1894 and 1896 as a 21-story structure, which was the second tallest building in New York City when completed. Between 1920 and 1922, an annex was built to designs by Meader, increasing the floor area and adding two stories to

6256-514: The American architectural profession. The construction of the Woolworth Building was announced in 1910 by Frank Woolworth , who wanted to create the largest income-producing property in the U.S. The project grew, and Woolworth finally opted for a 55-story, 792-foot (241 m) high skyscraper, the latest tallest building in the world, at a cost of $ 13.5 million ($ 5.1 billion in 2010 terms). Architect Cass Gilbert designs included

6392-526: The Asian countries (China, Japan). The economic boom of the 1920s and extensive real estate speculation encouraged a wave of new skyscraper projects in New York and Chicago. New York City's 1916 Zoning Resolution helped shape the Art Deco or " set-back " style of skyscrapers, leading to structures that focused on volume and striking silhouettes, often richly decorated. Skyscraper heights continued to grow, with

6528-478: The Chicago Board of Trade spent 20 percent of its rental revenue on service staff, employing 41 people, including janitors, elevator operators, engineers, and an electrician. With this collection of services and facilities, skyscrapers of the period were often referred to as small cities in their own right. Opposition to Chicago's skyscrapers began to grow during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Even before

6664-573: The Continental Insurance Company Building at 100-102 Broadway, on the American Surety Building's future site. Fire insurance companies established buildings on Pine Street as well. The American Surety Company was one of the insurance firms located within the Financial District, having been established in 1881 at 160 Broadway. The American Surety Company bought two lots at Broadway and Pine Street in 1893: an L-shaped lot with frontage on both streets, and another lot at

6800-521: The Masons' private suites and meeting halls, some able to hold up to 1,300 people. At the top was a roof garden and observation gallery. The Freemasons were competing with their local rivals the Odd Fellows , who intended to build a much higher skyscraper, 556 feet (169 m) tall, that they announced would be the tallest building in the world. Newspapers picked up the story, circulating facts about

6936-690: The Netherlands. The architects of early skyscrapers faced a number of challenges. The most fashionable architectural style in the late 19th century was the French Beaux-Arts movement, sometimes termed the Italian Renaissance style, which applied Classical aesthetic principles to modern buildings. American architects trained in the Beaux-Arts style at the Parisian Académie des Beaux-Arts began to return home in

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7072-573: The Peoples Gas Building using texture and the Railway Exchange Building's white terracotta, for example. The process of building skyscrapers became more sophisticated, starting with the acquisition of the real estate needed for the site. Brokers working on commission would secretly acquire the individual lots of land required for a project, operating under a variety of names to avoid having the price increase once

7208-472: The Schermerhorn Building for 99 years at an annual cost of $ 75,000 (equivalent to $ 2,363,466 in 2023), which would be equivalent to paying 5% of the Schermerhorn Building's $ 1.5 million valuation each year. This allowed American Surety to construct its cornice as planned. The building was completed in 1896 at a cost of $ 1.75 million (equal to $ 55 million in 2023), of which 10% had been spent on underground work. The North American Trust Company

7344-567: The September 11 attacks. Madison Capital bought 100 Broadway in late 2010, and shortly afterward, the Borders branch closed after Borders Group filed for bankruptcy. Most of the vacant retail space was ultimately occupied in 2012 by Duane Reade , a pharmacy and convenience store. TD Ameritrade occupied the remaining retail space in 2013, and Northwood Investors bought the building the same year for $ 150 million. The American Surety Building

7480-636: The Woolworth Building had around 600 different tenants in 1913, for example; a typical tenant might rent four or five office units in a skyscraper. Skyscrapers, particularly those in New York, attracted considerable comment, much of it negative. On his return to New York, writer Henry James condemned the buildings in The American Scene as simply "giants of the mere market", "mercenary monsters" doomed to be torn down in turn as other, even larger, buildings took their place. In Chicago

7616-444: The air. In the 1880s it began to be applied to buildings, first in 1883 to describe large public monuments and then in 1889 as a label for tall office blocks, coming into widespread use over the next decade. Unlike the tall buildings of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, which were primarily built for ceremonial and religious purposes, skyscrapers were largely targeted towards business applications. Various technological developments of

7752-444: The annex by May 1920. Herman Lee Meader supervised alterations, while Ernest R. Graham was hired as consulting architect. The work included a new L-shaped annex that widened the building by 40 feet (12 m), the width of four bays, on both Pine Street and Broadway. Meader added a light shaft along the new southern elevation, but retained Price's original facade. The work also involved removing existing flooring and partitions, since

7888-473: The annex, and the work was completed the next year. During the mid-20th century, one of the larger tenants was the Bank of Tokyo , which first took space in the American Surety Building in 1952 and expanded to the building's banking room and several floors over the next decade. Real estate investor Irving Brodsky bought the building in 1962, just after the American Surety Company merged with Transamerica Corporation . The Thomson Realty Company took ownership of

8024-433: The banks in the financial district of Manhattan competed fiercely with English institutions for international dominance. The Great Fire of 1835 destroyed most of the old financial buildings, and in their place a wide variety of new buildings were erected and demolished in quick succession during the 1840s and 1850s; traveler Philip Hone suggested that the entire city was being rebuilt every decade. Most buildings adopted

8160-696: The building as a city landmark in 1995. After the September 11 attacks in 2001 led to the collapse of the World Trade Center nearby, the Borders Group replaced its destroyed World Trade Center branch with a 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m) bookstore in the American Surety Building's base, which opened in 2003. The project was praised as one of several commercial projects that contributed to economic growth in Lower Manhattan after

8296-404: The building as a tower, which he saw as "the only artistic solution to the problem of high design". Although the American Surety Building was not entirely freestanding, being abutted by other structures, it had decorated facades on all four sides. Sometime during construction, the building's plans were modified so that it would have a 21st story. Price subsequently stated that he had planned to add

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8432-406: The building in 1973. When the bank's lease expired that year, it decided to sign a long-term lease and concurrently renovate the building. After the Bank of Tokyo signed its lease, the bank hired Kajima International to refurbish 100 Broadway's lowest thirteen stories, used by the Bank of Tokyo, for $ 11 million. Kajima installed new elevators, mechanical systems, and bronze windows. In addition,

8568-405: The building. A later tenant, the Bank of Tokyo , hired Kajima International to restore the lower 13 stories between 1973 and 1975. The American Surety Building was made a New York City designated landmark in 1995. The American Surety Building is located in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan , adjacent to Broadway to the west and Pine Street to the north, with Wall Street less than

8704-600: The buildings as either positive symbols of modernity and science, or alternatively examples of the ills of modern life and society. Skyscraper projects after World War II typically rejected the designs of the early skyscrapers, instead embracing the international style; many older skyscrapers were redesigned to suit contemporary tastes or even demolished—such as the Singer Tower, once the world's tallest skyscraper. Tall structures have been built in some form or another for millennia. Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza , built in

8840-464: The buildings. Fast Otis elevators, powered by electricity rather than steam-driven hydraulics, began to be installed in skyscrapers, with Ellithorpe safety air cushions protecting the passengers in the case of failure. Lighting improved, with the recommended levels in 1916 being around twice the level of the 1890s. Nonetheless, skyscrapers still relied primarily on natural sunlight, which required installing large windows and having tall ceilings to allow

8976-434: The caisson shafts. The building's internal steel structure is cantilevered over the foundation piers due to the presence of other structures nearby when the American Surety Building was erected. The internal structure was designed to be completely separate from the surrounding buildings, and thus party walls could not be used. A steel plate was placed atop the masonry tips of each pier. A grillage of transversely laid I-beams

9112-476: The center of the financial district. Chicago's skyscrapers, however, were constrained by the contemporary limits of steel-frame design and the muddy sub-soil in the city, which together limited most of its skyscrapers to around 16 or 17 stories. Chicago's skyscrapers rapidly became tourist destinations for the views of the wider city they provided from their upper floors and as attractive sites in their own right. Tourists were advised to hire cabs for street tours of

9248-635: The cities on the east coast and was immensely proud of its status as a growing, vibrant center. As early as 1868, its commercial buildings were touted as being "unequalled in the East for grandeur, business, or wealth," but such claims were regarded as risible. By the 1870s, Chicago had become the main financial center for the West, but in October 1871 the Great Chicago Fire destroyed the majority of

9384-549: The city of Chicago became the other major site in the development of early skyscrapers. In contrast to New York, Chicago emerged as a major metropolis only in the mid-19th century, growing from a village of around fifty inhabitants in 1830 , to a city of 30,000 in 1850 and nearly 300,000 by 1870 . Chicago became the railroad hub for the American West and the primary trading city for the emerging territories, famous for its commercial culture. It saw itself as different from

9520-473: The combination of the environmental pollution and skyscrapers meant that, as Charles Warner complained, "one can scarcely see across the streets on a damp day, and the huge buildings loom up in the black sky in ghostly dimness". Wider artistic sentiments varied. Many, like Alfred Stieglitz , harboured mixed feelings over New York's skyscrapers, reflected in his famous 1903 portrait of the Flatiron Building , and his 1910 work Old and New New York that contrasts

9656-639: The construction of the American Surety Building , a twenty-story, 303-foot (92 m) high-steel development that broke Chicago's height record. From then on, New York thoroughly embraced skeleton frame construction. In particular, New York newspaper companies adopted the skyscraper, building several along Park Row , sometimes termed "Newspaper Row", in the 1880s and 1890s. A few early skyscrapers were also constructed in Baltimore, Boston, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Rochester, and Buffalo, such as

9792-425: The corner. The price of the latter—$ 400,000, equivalent to $ 12,135,980 in 2023—was the largest price ever paid for a Broadway property at the time. The same year, the company announced that it wanted to build a 15-to-20-story headquarters tower, to be built on their lot measuring 100 by 85 feet (30 by 26 m). The company organized an architectural design competition , in which the contestants were directed to design

9928-460: The decade before World War I . The city's elevated train network was operating by 1910, allowing more workers to come into downtown. In 1910 alone 1,500,000 square feet (140,000 m ) of new offices were opened and by the end of the decade, Chicago had the second largest number of headquarters offices in the U.S. Chicago architectural firms such as Daniel H. Burnham and then Graham, Anderson, Probst & White continued to design skyscrapers in

10064-508: The deep bedrock on the site required particularly deep foundations. The tower was faced in dark brick and followed the Beaux-Arts style used by the rest of the complex, with a galleried lobby fitted out in Italian marble. When it opened in 1908, it had 41 stories and was 612 feet (187 m) tall; visitors paid $ 0.50 ($ 14 in 2020 terms) each to use the observation area at the top of the building. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower

10200-494: The development of the skyscraper, some criticized large buildings in Chicago for dominating churches and private houses, and this sentiment strengthened. Critics complained that the concentration of tall buildings in the center of the city was causing huge congestion, and each new skyscraper was also burning additional coal to power its facilities, together consuming a total of over one million tons each year, leaving smoke and stagnant air hanging over Chicago. Many were concerned over

10336-465: The early 19th century, and major breakthroughs came with the work of architect Peter Wight in the 1860s. Spurred on by the catastrophic fires in Chicago in 1871 and Boston in 1872 , his findings were turned into a wide variety of patented fireproofing products during the 1870s. Taller, heavier buildings such as skyscrapers also required stronger foundations than smaller buildings. Earlier buildings had typically rested their foundations on rubble, which

10472-412: The eastern and southern elevations above the eighth story. Between the first and eighth stories, the eastern and southern walls were load-bearing brick walls. The southern brick wall was 4 feet (1.2 m) thick to prevent fire from spreading to the Schermerhorn Building to the south. At the time of the building's construction, the thickness of a curtain wall was limited to 32 inches (810 mm), imposing

10608-503: The expanding workforce of white-collar staff in the U.S. continued to grow. Engineering developments made it easier to build and live in yet taller buildings. Chicago built new skyscrapers in its existing style, while New York experimented further with tower design. Iconic buildings such as the Flatiron were followed by the 612-foot (187 m) tall Singer Tower , the 700-foot (210 m) Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower , and

10744-595: The facade was richly textured and incorporated stylistic features more common in Chicago. A critical and popular success, the Flatiron was likened to the Parthenon of Ancient Greece and became a New York icon. The construction of the Singer Tower was announced by the company in 1906, who intended to produce the tallest skyscraper in the world. The company already had several low-rise buildings in New York that

10880-481: The first skyscraper because of its innovative use of structural steel in a metal frame design. The Home Insurance Building was a 138-foot (42 m) tall, 10-story skyscraper designed by William Le Baron Jenney , who had been trained as an engineer in France and was a leading architect in Chicago. Jenney's design was unusual in that it incorporated structural steel into the building's internal metal frame alongside

11016-584: The form exist in Europe, especially the United Kingdom. The Ditherington Flax Mill was built in Shropshire in 1797 as the world's first iron-framed building, and as such has been referred to as "the father of the skyscraper." Early skyscrapers emerged in the United States as a result of economic growth, the financial organization of American businesses, and the intensive use of land. New York City

11152-504: The foundations were complete. The deeper the foundations needed to be, the greater the challenge. Special water-tight boxes called caissons were invented to deal with this problem in England in 1830 and adopted in the U.S. during the 1850s and 1860s. The development of the elevator was also essential to the emergence of the early skyscrapers, as office buildings taller than around six stories would have been impractical without them. Powered elevators were first installed in England during

11288-418: The frantic building of the previous few years, meant that Chicago suddenly had a significant surplus of office space, threatening occupancy levels and rents. Regulation was introduced by the city council to control the problem in 1892, with support from the real estate industry who hoped to slow the construction of additional office space and shore up their diminishing profit margins. The height of new buildings

11424-512: The front of prominent magazines such as Scientific American , as well as on the sides of corn flake boxes, coffee packets, and cars. The tower was loosely modeled on the Venetian St Mark's Campanile , and featured extensive Early Renaissance-style detailing, with the more modern additions of huge clock faces, electric floodlights for night-time illumination, and an observation deck at the top. The design won critical acclaim within

11560-475: The ground-floor banking and commercial spaces were reconfigured into an open arcade, with the colonnade shielding a glass wall behind it. A sculpture by Isamu Noguchi , a 17-foot-long (5.2 m) aluminum rhomboid weighing 1,600 pounds (730 kg), was also placed in the lobby. This renovation was completed by 1975. The Bank of Tokyo removed the Noguchi sculpture in 1980 without telling Noguchi. The same year,

11696-479: The growing steel frame of the emerging Vanderbilt Hotel with the old low-rise blocks of the street below. Poets also wrote about the issues, the early Modernist Sadakichi Hartmann describing how "from the city's stir and madd'ning roar" the Flatiron's "monstrous shape soars in massive flight". Artists such as Alvin Coburn and John Marin experimented with producing portraits of New York's skyscrapers, capturing

11832-431: The income from a property. Chicago skyscraper windows were also a feature of the style; these were large, fixed windows flanked by smaller sash windows on either side, which provided access to sunlight and adequate ventilation. Sometimes these protruded from the building to form a slight bay. Although the exterior of the Chicago skyscrapers buildings were relatively plain, the entrance ways and lobbies were fitted out in

11968-557: The main windows, making it most efficient to build skyscrapers with as much premium office space as possible, even if this cost slightly more to construct in the first instance. As a result, a standard pattern for office units in both New York and Chicago emerged, with either a single rectangular office adjoining an exterior wall, or a T-shaped design, with a reception room giving way to two windowed offices, separated by glass partitions. Skyscrapers usually took on large numbers of relatively small companies as their tenants. A skyscraper such as

12104-521: The most interesting tall building in the country". Architecture critic Montgomery Schuyler said in 1913 that the building design was one of the first to use "the column analogy" that became popular at the beginning of the 20th century. After the 1975 modernization project, critic Ada Louise Huxtable called 100 Broadway "one of those sleeper landmarks (undesignated) of which New York has so many more than anyone realizes—an outstandingly fine early skyscraper". Early skyscrapers Chicago initially led

12240-407: The north side of the building, as well as two staircases at the northwest and southeast corners. The lobby has a black-and-gold coffered ceiling with a baby-centaur frieze. The ground level contains a large open arcade with 30-foot-tall (9.1 m) ceilings. There was previously a banking room at street level, which contained a gold-leaf ceiling supported by four marble pillars. This banking room

12376-437: The now-demolished Manhattan Life Insurance Building one block south, which stood at 313 feet (95 m). At the time of the American Surety Building's development in the 1890s, new buildings in New York City were starting to use steel frames, and caisson foundation technology was still relatively new. The American Surety Building was the first New York City skyscraper to use a full steel skeleton. The American Surety Building

12512-464: The outside of skyscrapers at the ground level and simpler, plainer ornamentation on the upper levels, with strong vertical lines. The roofs of their skyscrapers typically formed a comprehensible outline and structure when seen at a distance as part of the city skyline. The intent was to draw the observer's eye upwards, celebrating what Sullivan termed the "lofty" nature of the skyscraper, but not wasting resources on intricate detailing unlikely to appeal to

12648-508: The positive and negative aspects of the modern structures. In 1908 artist Harry Pettit produced a romantic interpretation of a future New York, filled with giant skyscrapers supporting aerial bridges and receiving dirigibles from around the globe. Amongst the architectural community, the Exposition in Chicago inspired many Americans to champion planning cities that had a unified design, in which each building had unique features but elegantly complemented its neighbours, typically by being built to

12784-495: The processes for erecting skyscrapers, largely through the work of general contractors such as Louis Horowitz and Frank Gilbreth , who in turn drew on recent work by efficiency specialist Frederick Taylor . Time schedules were devised for all the work to be undertaken, with costs carefully monitored and reports produced each day. The results were demonstrated on the Woolworth Building construction project, where 1,153 tonnes (1,153,000 kg) of steel were assembled in only six days,

12920-413: The recently invented typewriter , which grew in number in U.S. offices from 146 in 1879 to 65,000 by 1890. Skyscrapers provided a wide range of in-house services for their tenants, including shops, restaurants, barbers, tobacconists, newsagents, tailors, professional specialists and libraries. Skyscrapers also employed a substantial number of service staff to maintain and support them; a building such as

13056-427: The recovery was well underway, with new construction in New York returning to the pace of 1871, and the economic upturn making the construction of taller buildings an attractive financial option again, establishing many of the preconditions for the development of the skyscraper. The emergence of skyscrapers was made possible by technological improvements during the middle of the 19th century. One of these developments

13192-544: The relatively small plots of land in New York. Some New York skyscrapers emulated the tripartite style of Chicago, but others broke their exterior down into many different layers, each with its own style. Proponents argued that this reintroduced a sense of human proportion to these tall buildings; critics felt that the results were confusing and ungainly. Early skyscrapers were mainly made up of small office cubicles, commonly only 12 feet (3.7 m) across, which were placed adjacent to one another along long corridors, following

13328-529: The risk of a major fire breaking out and spreading, uncontrolled, from building to building. Chicago was not alone in having concerns over the growth of the skyscraper. In Boston, the Fiske and the Ames Buildings were built in the late 1880s, 183 ft (56 m) and 190 feet (58 m) tall respectively, but protests by local civic campaigners and the real estate industry resulted in the city passing

13464-435: The roles of architect and engineer, but this broke down in Chicago during the period, being replaced by a partnership between specialist architects who focused on the appearance of the skyscraper, and specialist engineers who focused on the structures that enabled it to be built. Chicago architectural firms grew to be large, hierarchical and with numerous specialist staff; the D. H. Burnham & Company , for example, felt like

13600-554: The sides are parallel. The original lot, prior to the building's 1920–1922 expansion, measured 84.67 by 85.33 feet (26 by 26 m). The American Surety Building is either 23 or 26 stories tall, with a height of 338 feet (103 m). and was designed by Bruce Price in the Neo-Renaissance style. Upon completion, the American Surety Building was 21 stories tall with a height of either 308 or 312 feet (94 or 95 m). This made it New York City's second tallest building, behind

13736-632: The size of the Temple and making comparison to historical buildings such as the Capitol or the Statue of Liberty . The Odd Fellows project failed, but the Masonic Temple capitalized on the publicity, being declared the "tallest commercial building in the world". In comparison, New York trailed behind Chicago, having only four buildings over 16 stories tall by 1893. Part of the delay was caused by

13872-474: The skyscrapers – by lying back in the cab, they would be able to safely take in the tops of the tall buildings. The Masonic Temple was the most prominent of these skyscrapers. Built by the Freemasons of Chicago in 1892, at a time when the Masons was a fast-growing social community, the lavish 302-foot (92 m) tall skyscraper had 19 stories, the bottom ten holding shops and the higher levels containing

14008-475: The slowness of the city authorities to authorize metal-frame construction techniques; it was not until 1889 that they relented and allowed Bradford Gilbert to construct the Tower Building , an 11-story iron-framed skyscraper. This encouraged the building of more skyscrapers in New York, although the city remained cautious about the technology for some years. Finally, in 1895 a breakthrough was made with

14144-495: The standards of the day, these offices were very modern, with radiators, air vents, and the latest fixtures and fittings, and modern communication systems, including telephone and pneumatic tubes were often installed. As a result, many businesses chose to move out of their older, low-rise offices in Chicago to take up tenancy in the new skyscrapers, which were felt to be more convenient and healthier. The first skyscrapers were mainly occupied by male workers, but this changed during

14280-505: The street. Contractor Charles Sooysmith designed the foundation, which was a mix of grillage and caissons. Sooysmith was among the first builders to use pneumatic caissons for foundations, having used them in other projects such as the Manhattan Life Insurance Building. The caissons were sunken to stone beds between 71 and 79 feet (22 and 24 m) deep, where the layer of bedrock was situated. Each caisson

14416-412: The streets and the fumes from the gas lighting made air quality a major health issue. A steam-driven, forced-draft ventilation system was invented in 1860 and became widely used in taller buildings by the 1870s, overcoming much of the problem. Improvements in iron piping permitted running hot and cold water and sanitation facilities to be installed throughout taller buildings for the first time. There

14552-537: The structural frame underneath and incorporating 15th and 16th century Flamboyant Gothic -styled features. It was capped by a gilded tower that blended into the sky behind it to produce an illusion of even greater height. The building was illuminated with floodlights at night, topped with red and white flashing lights. It was famously dubbed the "Cathedral of Commerce", rather to Gilbert's displeasure as he had attempted to avoid copying ecclesiastical architecture. Meanwhile, Chicago's skyscraper industry also boomed during

14688-424: The sunlight to penetrate the back of the offices; an office deeper than 28 feet (8.5 m) was not considered a practical design. One of the reasons for the increase in the numbers of skyscrapers during this period was the growth in demand for office workers. In part this demand was fuelled by many U.S. firms becoming larger and more complex, and white-collar sectors such as insurance and banking grew in scale. It

14824-476: The tenants, such surroundings were good for their own business credibility and affirmed their own social status as professionals. New York faced similar architectural challenges, but in comparison to Chicago, skyscraper architects worked less closely with engineers and other specialists, and instead held strong backgrounds in the Beaux Arts movement and perceived their role to be primarily artistic rather than

14960-491: The third story on Pine Street and Broadway. The facades of the intermediate stories contain slightly projecting horizontal bands. A band course runs above the fourth story on the Broadway and Pine Street facades. There are sculptures extending across the 14th and 15th stories, connecting the intermediate floors to the transitional 15th story. The top six stories were treated as a "cap" with Corinthian style pilasters forming

15096-475: The total time allocated for the building's construction. The design for the American Surety Building's cornice, which projected 5 feet (1.5 m) beyond the lot line, led to a lawsuit filed by John Jacob Astor , who owned the Schermerhorn Building immediately to the south and east. When Astor threatened to build a 22-story building in May 1896, shutting off the windows on these sides, the American Surety Company rented

15232-441: The tower would be incorporated into and planned to rent out the bottom half of the tower to tenants to subsidize their use of the upper half. The skyscraper was designed by Ernest Flagg , a Beaux-Arts advocate and noted critic of existing skyscrapers, who justified taking on the project as a way of generating support for skyscraper reform. The design was technically challenging: the tall, narrow tower needed special wind bracing, and

15368-438: The traditional wrought iron. This frame took the weight of the floors of the building and helped to support the weight of the external walls as well, proving an important step towards creating the genuine non-structural curtain walls that became a feature of later skyscrapers. The design was not perfect – some of the weight was still carried by masonry walls, and the metal frame was bolted, rather than riveted , together – but it

15504-469: The upper floors at its southern end. On Pine Street, the lowest two stories are supported by two-story piers above a granite water table , supporting an entablature that wraps around from Broadway. There is a service entrance on the east end of the Pine Street facade, and the third-story windows on this facade have projecting window surrounds with connecting spandrel panels. An entablature runs above

15640-455: The upper floors would have to be wider than the lower floors to align with the original building's walls, which receded gradually on each floor. The entrance portico on Broadway was shifted to the center of the facade; two figures on the 14th and 15th floors were removed; and a two-story penthouse was added. The New York Herald reported in July 1921 that the company had picked a leasing agent for

15776-446: The upper floors. In contrast, New York's skyscrapers were frequently narrower towers which, more eclectic in style, were often criticized for their lack of elegance. In 1892, Chicago banned the construction of new skyscrapers taller than 150 feet (46 m), leaving the development of taller buildings to New York. A new wave of skyscraper construction emerged in the first decade of the 20th century. The demand for new office space to hold

15912-485: The way in skyscraper design, with many constructed in the center of its financial district during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Sometimes termed the products of the Chicago school of architecture , these skyscrapers attempted to balance aesthetic concerns with practical commercial design, producing large, square palazzo -styled buildings hosting shops and restaurants on the ground level and containing rentable offices on

16048-515: The wooden structures within the city. The city was rebuilt on large plots of land in a grid network and followed new city ordinances that prohibited construction in wood. These factors encouraged the building of taller properties in new innovative designs, which, like New York, saw a range of businesses and services being packed into single buildings. Especially popular in the post-fire era were "commercial blocks", several-story masonry buildings built to property lines with only one street facade that

16184-418: Was 9 feet (2.7 m) tall and made of 0.5-inch-thick (13 mm) steel plates. A steel shaft with a cross section of 3 by 5 feet (0.91 by 1.52 m) rose from each of the caissons, and was topped by a cylinder of 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter by 10 feet (3.0 m) tall. The underlying ground was drawn out from the caissons, and then filled with concrete. Thirteen brick piers were subsequently built around

16320-515: Was adorned in such styles as Italianate, Classical Revival, and English Gothic. Such blocks, which were very flexible in their use, had already been prolific before the fire, and early post-fire reconstruction differed from the old styles downtown only in scale. The construction of taller buildings during the 1870s was hindered by the financial Panic of 1873 and the ensuing economic depression, which lasted until around 1879. Construction slowed, and property values slumped. By 1880, however,

16456-495: Was also driven by changing technology. The typewriter was joined in the office by the adding machine , the telephone and filing cabinets, all adding to the demand for office space and requiring increasingly specialised workers. Tenants and rental income were essential to the financial success of any skyscraper, as even the largest skyscrapers and those founded by prominent companies rented out much of their office space. Owners could charge significantly more for office space close to

16592-438: Was also one of the earliest buildings on street corners whose articulation consisted of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column (namely a base, shaft, and capital ). The design inspired those of other "tower" skyscrapers in the United States during the early 20th century. The facade consists of Maine granite with a 3-story base, a 12-story shaft, and a 6-story capital, with two transitional stories at

16728-535: Was clearly a significant advance in tall building construction. The approach quickly caught on in Chicago. In 1889 the Tacoma Building replaced the bolted metal design with a stronger riveted approach, and Chicago's Chamber of Commerce Building introduced interior light courts to the structural design of skyscrapers. The 1890 Rand McNally Building became the first entirely self-supporting, steel-framed skyscraper. Some buildings, such as The Rookery and

16864-482: Was demonstrated during January 1896, when the building was subjected to that wind speed with minimal evidence of oscillation . Exposed steel beams were covered with 3.5-inch-thick (89 mm) fireproof tile, while the floor arches were made of 10-inch-thick (250 mm) firebrick. The floors themselves were made of brick arches, concrete and ash aggregate , and steel joints , covered with a marble finish. The northern and western elevations were curtain walls , as were

17000-431: Was erected at a time when buildings usually did not rise higher than 10 or 11 stories, and when skyscrapers were generally criticized. Architecture critic Russell Sturgis praised the ground-floor colonnade in 1899 as "a masterly adaptation of the loveliest forms of antiquity" reinforced by the pilasters on Pine Street and Broadway. When Price died in 1903, The Brickbuilder described the American Surety Building as "certainly

17136-545: Was extensively described in engineering journals and was initially used to build warehouses. Using these metal frames for taller buildings, however, meant exposing them to increased wind pressure . As a consequence, protective wind bracing had to be introduced, enabled by the work of Augustin-Jean Fresnel who produced equations for calculating the loads and moments on larger buildings. Metal-framed buildings were also vulnerable to fire and required special fireproofing . French engineers had made advances in this area in

17272-427: Was in turn laid down on the soft top layer of the ground called the overburden . As buildings became taller and heavier, the overburden could not support their weight, and foundations increasingly needed to rest directly on the bedrock below. In both New York and Chicago this required digging down a considerable distance through soft soil and often below the water table , risking the hole filling up with water before

17408-494: Was installed above the plates. Deep plate girders were placed over the grillages, and the cantilevers extended outward from these girders to the edge of the building footprint, where they supported the columns of the superstructure. At the time of the American Surety Building's construction, there was already discussion on building a subway line under Broadway (which would become the Lexington Avenue Line , served by

17544-434: Was limited to 150 feet (46 m), with lower height levels on narrower streets, effectively curtailing the construction of any taller skyscrapers. The early years of the 20th century saw a range of technically sophisticated, architecturally confident skyscrapers built in New York; academics Sarah Landau and Carl Condit term this "the first great age" of skyscraper building. Some were relatively conservative buildings in

17680-521: Was one of Manhattan's first buildings with steel framing and curtain wall construction. The American Surety Building contains a facade of Maine granite. Its articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column , namely a base, shaft, and capital , making the American Surety Building one of the earliest New York City skyscrapers to feature such a layout. The facade contains several ornamental features, including sculptural elements designed by J. Massey Rhind . In addition,

17816-563: Was one of the building's earlier tenants, having obtained quarters at the American Surety Building by 1898. Another early tenant was the Weather Bureau , which moved from its previous quarters at the Manhattan Life Building and installed a 100-foot-tall (30 m) steel pole atop the American Surety Building. As built, there was an air shaft between the American Surety and Schermerhorn buildings; this air shaft led to

17952-417: Was one of the centers of early skyscraper construction and had a history as a key seaport located on the small island of Manhattan , on the east coast of the U.S. As a consequence of its colonial history and city planning , New York's real estate was broken up into many small parcels of land, with few large sites. During the first half of the 19th century it became the national center of American finance, and

18088-408: Was opened in 1909, the culmination of a long building project by N. LeBrun and Sons to hold Metropolitan Life's growing headquarters staff, 2,800 strong by 1909. At 700 feet (210 m) high and with 50 stories, it became the world's new tallest building. Metropolitan Life intended the skyscraper to promote the company's image, and the building was surrounded by publicity. The tower was featured on

18224-484: Was removed in a 1970s renovation and replaced with the open arcade. During the late 19th century, life insurance firms were some of the first companies to build high-profile skyscrapers. At the time of the American Surety Building's construction, life insurance companies generally had their own buildings for their offices and branch locations. According to architectural writer Kenneth Gibbs, these buildings allowed each individual company to instill "not only its name but also

18360-459: Was the iron framed building. Masonry buildings supported their internal floors through their walls, but the taller the building, the thicker the walls had to become, particularly at the base. In the 1860s, French engineers experimented with using built-up plate girders made of wrought iron to construct buildings supported by internal metal frames. These frames were stronger than traditional masonry and permitted much thinner walls. The methodology

18496-498: Was used to reduce the maximum water pressure in the American Surety Building's pipes. When the building was expanded in 1920, a two-story penthouse was added, with 6,500 square feet (600 m) of restaurant space on each floor. The rental space on the 1st through 7th floors was expanded from 4,316 to 12,000 square feet (401.0 to 1,114.8 m), and above the 7th floor, the rental space was expanded to 11,000 square feet (1,000 m). The expanded building had ten elevators clustered on

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