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182-588: The Potter Building is a building in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City . The building occupies a full block along Beekman Street with the addresses 38 Park Row to its west and 145 Nassau Street to its east. It was designed by Norris G. Starkweather in a combination of the Queen Anne and neo-Grec styles, as an iron-framed structure. The Potter Building employed

364-612: A Con Edison plant. With mass transit in New York City already suspended as a precaution even before the storm hit, the New York Stock Exchange and other financial exchanges were closed for two days, re-opening on October 31. From 2013 to 2021, nearly two hundred buildings in the Financial District were converted to residential use. Furthermore, between 2001 and 2021, the proportion of companies in

546-574: A New York City landmark in 1996 and is also a contributing property to the Fulton–Nassau Historic District , a National Register of Historic Places district created in 2005. The Potter Building is in the Financial District of Manhattan , just east of New York City Hall , City Hall Park , and the Civic Center . The building abuts Park Row for about 97 feet (30 m) to the west, Beekman Street for 144 feet (44 m) to

728-571: A Republican Party -affiliated penny paper , as well as The New York Observer . The Potter Building was also occupied by paper manufacturers Peter Adams Company and Adams & Bishop Company, the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association insurance company, and the Otis Elevator Company . In addition, Potter occupied the top floor, and his New York Architectural Terra Cotta Company also had offices in

910-428: 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

1092-590: A joint venture named 38 Park Row Associates, composed of Martin Raynes and the East River Savings Bank. 38 Park Row Associates converted the building into residential cooperatives and gave it to the 38 Park Row Residence Corporation in 1981. Following the residential conversion, a structural engineer noted that the facade had "significant deterioration particularly in the mortar jointings". The Potter Building's co-op board subsequently arranged for

1274-601: A powerful bomb exploded . It killed 38 and seriously injured 143 people. The area was subjected to numerous threats; one bomb threat in 1921 led to detectives sealing off the area to "prevent a repetition of the Wall Street bomb explosion". During most of the 20th century, the Financial District was a business community with practically only offices which emptied out at night. Writing in The Death and Life of Great American Cities in 1961, urbanist Jane Jacobs described

1456-581: A "deathlike stillness that settles on the district after 5:30 and all day Saturday and Sunday". But there has been a change towards greater residential use of the area, pushed forwards by technological changes and shifting market conditions. The general pattern is for several hundred thousand workers to commute into the area during the day, sometimes by sharing a taxicab from other parts of the city as well as from New Jersey and Long Island , and then leave at night. In 1970 only 833 people lived "south of Chambers Street"; by 1990, 13,782 people were residents with

1638-484: A "textbook case for fire retardation", was the last major building to be supported by load-bearing walls, which would have been unnecessary in light of the iron superstructure. The Potter Building is U-shaped, with a "light court" within the two arms of the "U", facing outward toward Beekman Street. The building is one of the city's oldest extant structures with a light court. The Real Estate Record and Guide said that "the rooms on each side are made symmetrical in spite of

1820-458: 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

2002-450: 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

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2184-551: 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

2366-702: 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

2548-454: A depth of 56 to 59 feet (17 to 18 m), underneath the groundwater level. The exterior columns are made of iron. All of the above-ground floors were built on girders made of rolled iron. The girders were 15 inches (380 mm) thick and range from 13.75 to 16.25 feet (4.19 to 4.95 m) long. The floor beams, 10.5 inches (270 mm) thick, sit atop the flanges of each girder; their centers are set 4.5 feet (1.4 m) apart, and most of

2730-479: A downturn with a sizable drop in year-end bonuses of $ 6.5 billion, according to one estimate from a state comptroller's office. To guard against a vehicular bombing in the area, authorities built concrete barriers, and found ways over time to make them more aesthetically appealing by spending $ 5000 to $ 8000 apiece on bollards . Several streets in the neighborhood, including Wall and Broad Streets, were blocked off by specially designed bollards: Rogers Marvel designed

2912-530: A few hours, killing six people and causing more than $ 400,000 in damage (equivalent to $ 13 million in 2023); The World building was said to have "made itself notorious the country over for burning up in the shortest time on record", and it took a week to examine the wreckage, Several days after the fire, the Real Estate Record and Guide said that "the ground is so valuable that it will no doubt be immediately built upon". Potter sought to replace

3094-424: A fifth of buildings and warehouses were empty, and many were converted to living areas. Some conversions met with problems, such as aging gargoyles on building exteriors having to be expensively restored to meet with current building codes. Residents in the area have sought to have a supermarket, a movie theater, a pharmacy, more schools, and a "good diner". The discount retailer named Job Lot used to be located at

3276-526: A former headquarters of the New York World , which was built in 1857 and burned down in February 1882. It was named for its developer, the politician and real estate developer Orlando B. Potter . The Potter Building originally served as an office building with many tenants from the media and from legal professions. It was converted into apartments from 1979 to 1981. The Potter Building was designated

3458-482: 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

3640-652: 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 the wooden structures within the city. The city was rebuilt on large plots of land in

3822-412: A halt, ending this era of skyscraper construction. Popular and academic culture embraced the skyscraper through films, photography, literature, and ballet, seeing 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

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4004-510: 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 the banks in the financial district of Manhattan competed fiercely with English institutions for international dominance. The Great Fire of 1835 destroyed most of

4186-461: 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 the 19th century, which included such design elements as wind bracing and crucially

4368-502: 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

4550-744: A lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 86.3% between 1990 and 2018. The precinct reported 1 murder, 23 rapes, 80 robberies, 61 felony assaults, 85 burglaries, 1,085 grand larcenies, and 21 grand larcenies auto in 2018. The Financial District is served by three New York City Fire Department (FDNY) fire stations: As of 2018 , preterm births and births to teenage mothers are less common in Financial District and Lower Manhattan than in other places citywide. In Financial District and Lower Manhattan, there were 77 preterm births per 1,000 live births (compared to 87 per 1,000 citywide), and 2.2 teenage births per 1,000 live births (compared to 19.3 per 1,000 citywide), though

4732-486: 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 the cities on the east coast and was immensely proud of its status as

4914-519: A museum visit and discussion of various financiers "who were adept at finding ways around finance laws or loopholes through them". Occasionally artists make impromptu performances; for example, in 2010, a troupe of 22 dancers "contort their bodies and cram themselves into the nooks and crannies of the Financial District in Bodies in Urban Spaces " choreographed by Willi Donner. One chief attraction,

5096-473: A neighborhood, a community." During the past two decades there has been a shift towards greater residential living areas in the Financial District, with incentives from city authorities in some instances. Many empty office buildings have been converted to lofts and apartments; for example, the Liberty Tower , the office building of oil magnate Harry Sinclair , was converted to a co-op in 1979. In 1996,

5278-566: A new kind of bollard, a faceted piece of sculpture whose broad, slanting surfaces offer people a place to sit in contrast to the typical bollard, which is supremely unsittable. The bollard, which is called the Nogo, looks a bit like one of Frank Gehry's unorthodox culture palaces, but it is hardly insensitive to its surroundings. Its bronze surfaces actually echo the grand doorways of Wall Street's temples of commerce. Pedestrians easily slip through groups of them as they make their way onto Wall Street from

5460-641: A painters' and carpenters' strike in 1885. The building was completed in June 1886. Potter's involvement in the process of terracotta selection was so extensive that he founded the New York Architectural Terra-Cotta Company with his son-in-law Walter Geer. An 1888 brochure for the company stated that the Potter Building was "an example of the best use of terra-cotta, both for constructive and ornamental purposes". At

5642-561: 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

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5824-535: 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

6006-486: 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

6188-566: A provincial extension of the Dutch Republic and was designated as the capital of the province of New Netherland in 1625. By 1655, the population of New Netherland had grown to 2,000 people, with 1,500 living in New Amsterdam. By 1664, the population of New Netherland had skyrocketed to almost 9,000 people, 2,500 of whom lived in New Amsterdam, 1,000 lived near Fort Orange , and the remainder in other towns and villages. In 1664

6370-416: 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

6552-567: A renovation of the facade in 1992-1993, to be carried out by Siri + Marsik and Henry Restoration. The Potter Building, along with the Manhasset Apartments and 110 East 42nd Street , was made a New York City designated landmark on September 21, 1996. A controversy ensued in 1999 when the Blimpie restaurant at the Potter Building's ground level decided to place outdoor seating on Nassau Street, which had recently been converted from

6734-653: A second estimate (based on the 2000 census based on a different map) places the residential population in 2000 at 12,042. By 2001 there were several grocery stores, dry cleaners, and two grade schools and a top high school. In 2001, the Big Board , as some termed the NYSE, was described as the world's "largest and most prestigious stock market". When the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001 , it left an architectural void as new developments since

6916-399: 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:

7098-442: 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

7280-708: A visual landmark for drivers and pedestrians. In some respects, the nexus of the Financial District moved physically from Wall Street to the World Trade Center complex and surrounding buildings such as the Deutsche Bank Building , 90 West Street , and One Liberty Plaza . Real estate growth during the latter part of the 1990s was significant, with deals and new projects happening in the Financial District and elsewhere in Manhattan; one firm invested more than $ 24 billion in various projects, many in

7462-429: A weekday-only pedestrian zone into a full-time pedestrian plaza. Residents of the Potter Building complained that the seating violated a city ordinance on sidewalk cafes . In 2005, the Potter Building was designated as a contributing property to the Fulton–Nassau Historic District , a National Register of Historic Places district. Lower Manhattan's late-19th century skyscrapers generally received mixed reception, and

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7644-567: A writer for the same magazine compared the Potter Building with the Times Building at 41 Park Row, saying that the Potter Building's architect "contrived to make [it] appear at once monotonous and uneasy". There were also positive reviews of the design. An 1885 Carpentry and Building article stated that the building was "one of the most conspicuous new buildings in the lower part of New York City", because of its juxtaposition of iron with brick and terracotta. The King's Handbook described

7826-624: Is NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital in the Civic Center area. Early skyscrapers Chicago initially led 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

8008-406: Is 0.0096 mg/m (9.6 × 10  oz/cu ft), more than the city average. Sixteen percent of Financial District and Lower Manhattan residents are smokers , which is more than the city average of 14% of residents being smokers. In Financial District and Lower Manhattan, 4% of residents are obese , 3% are diabetic , and 15% have high blood pressure , the lowest rates in the city—compared to

8190-584: Is a major location of tourism in New York City . One report described Lower Manhattan as "swarming with camera-carrying tourists". Tour guides highlight places such as Trinity Church , the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building gold vaults 80 feet below street level (worth $ 100 billion), and the New York Stock Exchange Building . A Scoundrels of Wall Street Tour is a walking historical tour which includes

8372-626: 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

8554-542: 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

8736-529: Is arranged in a mixture of styles, including the Queen Anne , neo-Grec , Renaissance Revival , and Colonial Revival styles. As a result, it stands out from the surrounding buildings. The Potter Building's architect, Norris Garshom Starkweather , was known for designing churches and villas in the mid-Atlantic states. The building measures 165 feet (50 m) tall from sidewalk to roof, with finials extending upward another 30 feet (9.1 m). The original design remains mostly intact. The Potter Building employed

8918-642: Is bounded by the West Side Highway on the west, Chambers Street and City Hall Park on the north, Brooklyn Bridge on the northeast, the East River to the southeast, and South Ferry and the Battery on the south. The City of New York was created in the modern-day Financial District in 1624, and the neighborhood roughly overlaps with the boundaries of the New Amsterdam settlement in

9100-461: Is elaborately designed in the classical style and includes massive capitals atop the vertical piers , as well as triangular and swans'-neck pediments. The piers divide the facades into multiple bays , which each contain two windows on each floor. The piers, clad with brick above the second floor, are 4.5 feet (1.4 m) wide at the base, with a uniform width for the building's entire height, but range in thickness from 40 inches (1,000 mm) at

9282-468: Is generally rooted in the Gilded Age , though there are also some art deco influences in the neighborhood. The area is distinguished by narrow streets, a steep topography, and high-rises Construction in such narrow steep areas has resulted in occasional accidents such as a crane collapse. One report divided lower Manhattan into three basic districts: Federal Hall National Memorial , on the site of

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9464-428: 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,

9646-691: Is now a 1,776 ft (541 m) tall structure, opened in 2014 as the One World Trade Center . Fulton Center , a new transit complex intended to improve access to the area, opened in 2014, followed by the World Trade Center Transportation Hub in 2016. Additionally, in 2007, the Maharishi Global Financial Capital of New York opened headquarters at 70 Broad Street near the NYSE, in an effort to seek investors. By

9828-625: Is patrolled by the 1st Precinct of the New York City Police Department . The Financial District encompasses roughly the area south of City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan but excludes Battery Park and Battery Park City . The former World Trade Center complex was located in the neighborhood until the September 11, 2001, attacks ; the neighborhood includes the successor One World Trade Center . The heart of

10010-938: Is the locus for a large amount of technology and data. For example, to accommodate the three thousand persons who work directly on the Exchange floor requires 3,500 kilowatts of electricity, along with 8,000 phone circuits on the trading floor alone, and 200 miles of fiber-optic cable below ground. Buildings in the Financial District can have one of several types of official landmark designations: The following landmarks are situated south of Morris Street and west of Whitehall Street/Broadway: The following landmarks are located west of Broadway between Morris and Barclay Streets: The following landmarks are located south of Wall Street and east of Broadway/Whitehall Street: The following landmarks are located east of Broadway between Wall Street and Maiden Lane: The following landmarks are located east of Broadway and Park Row between Maiden Lane and

10192-576: Is the world's largest stock exchange by total market capitalization . Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Financial District, including the New York Mercantile Exchange , NASDAQ , the New York Board of Trade , and the former American Stock Exchange . The Financial District is part of Manhattan Community District 1 , and its primary ZIP Codes are 10004, 10005, 10006, 10007, and 10038. It

10374-456: Is well-suited for tall buildings, with a solid mass of bedrock underneath Manhattan providing a firm foundation for tall buildings. Skyscrapers are expensive to build, but the scarcity of land in the Financial District made it suitable for the construction of skyscrapers. Business writer John Brooks in his book Once in Golconda considered the start of the 20th century period to have been

10556-694: 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 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

10738-549: 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

10920-800: The Park Row Building , the New York Tribune Building , and the New York World Building . Meanwhile, printing was centered around Beekman Street. When the Brick Presbyterian Church congregation moved uptown to Murray Hill in 1857, Orlando B. Potter , a politician and a prominent real estate developer at the time, purchased the southern half of the Old Brick Church lot. Potter erected a five-story Italianate stone building on

11102-649: 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,

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11284-1272: 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 ,

11466-480: 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 the 26th century BC at a height of 481 feet (147 m), would remain the tallest structure on Earth for a millennia until it

11648-507: 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 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

11830-555: 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:

12012-644: 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

12194-424: 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

12376-581: 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

12558-489: 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

12740-411: The 1970s had played off the complex aesthetically. The attacks "crippled" the communications network. One estimate was that 45% of the neighborhood's "best office space" had been lost. The physical destruction was immense: Debris littered some streets of the financial district. National Guard members in camouflage uniforms manned checkpoints. Abandoned coffee carts, glazed with dust from the collapse of

12922-478: The 20,088 counted in 2000 . Covering an area of 479.77 acres (194.16 ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 82.7/acre (52,900/sq mi; 20,400/km ). The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 65.4% (25,965) White , 3.2% (1,288) African American , 0.1% (35) Native American , 20.2% (8,016) Asian , 0.0% (17) Pacific Islander , 0.4% (153) from other races , and 3.0% (1,170) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.7% (3,055) of

13104-561: The 2010s, the Financial District had become established as a residential and commercial neighborhood. Several new skyscrapers such as 125 Greenwich Street and 130 William were being developed, while other structures such as 1 Wall Street , the Equitable Building , and the Woolworth Building were extensively renovated. Additionally, there were more signs of dogwalkers at night and a 24-hour neighborhood, although

13286-464: The 612-foot (187 m) tall Singer Tower , the 700-foot (210 m) Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower , and 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

13468-684: The American Indian , Trinity Church , St. Paul's Chapel , and the famous bull . Bowling Green is the starting point of traditional ticker-tape parades on Broadway , where here it is also known as the Canyon of Heroes . The Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Skyscraper Museum are both in adjacent Battery Park City which is also home to the Brookfield Place (formerly World Financial Center). Another key anchor for

13650-502: 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

13832-418: The Battery. The Bowling Green area was described as "Wall Street's back yard " with poor people, high infant mortality rates, and the "worst housing conditions in the city". As a result of the construction, looking at New York City from the east, one can see two distinct clumps of tall buildings—the Financial District on the left, and the taller Midtown neighborhood on the right. The geology of Manhattan

14014-610: The Brooklyn Bridge: The following landmarks apply to multiple distinct areas: What is now the Financial District was once part of New Amsterdam , situated on the strategic southern tip of the island of Manhattan. New Amsterdam was derived from Fort Amsterdam , meant to defend the fur trade operations of the Dutch West India Company in the North River ( Hudson River ). In 1624, it became

14196-478: 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

14378-596: The English took over New Amsterdam and renamed it New York City. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the corporate culture of New York was a primary center for the construction of early skyscrapers , and was rivaled only by Chicago on the American continent. There were also residential sections, such as the Bowling Green section between Broadway and the Hudson River , and between Vesey Street and

14560-599: The Federal Reserve, paid $ 750,000 to open a visitors' gallery in 1997. The New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange also spent money in the late 1990s to upgrade facilities for visitors. Attractions include the gold vault beneath the Federal Reserve and that "staring down at the trading floor was as exciting as going to the Statue of Liberty ". The Financial District's architecture

14742-513: The Financial District is often considered to be the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street , both of which are contained entirely within the district. The northeastern part of the Financial District (along Fulton Street and John Street) was known in the early 20th century as the Insurance District, due to the large number of insurance companies that were either headquartered there, or maintained their New York offices there. Although

14924-519: The Financial District to more affordable locations. The recession of 1990–91 was marked by office vacancy rates downtown which were "persistently high" and with some buildings "standing empty". In 1995, city authorities offered the Lower Manhattan Revitalization Plan which offered incentives to convert commercial properties to residential use. According to one description in 1996, "The area dies at night ... It needs

15106-521: 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

15288-690: 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

15470-573: 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

15652-407: The Potter Building as "distinguished above all by its ruggedly picturesque red brick and cast-iron-clad outer walls abundantly trimmed with terra-cotta". Informational notes Citations Bibliography Financial District, Manhattan The Financial District of Lower Manhattan , also known as FiDi , is a neighborhood located on the southern tip of Manhattan in New York City . It

15834-495: The Potter Building as being among the city's "great and illustrious monuments of commercial success", while an 1899 architecture guidebook said that the Potter Building's "design is unusual and perhaps excessive in detail, but has great interest in the disposition of its masses." Later, in 1991, New York Times writer David W. Dunlap described the Potter Building as "almost hallucinatory in its Victorian encrustation". Architectural writers Sarah Landau and Carl Condit characterized

16016-411: The Potter Building to be "an ornament to the neighborhood". Inside were originally 351 suites that could be used by up to 1,800 people at a time. The ceilings of each story are 11 feet (3.4 m) high. The building's upper floors were later converted into apartments of 1,700 square feet (160 m) each, though the apartments retained the 18.5-inch-thick (47 cm) walls. The Potter Building lot, and

16198-444: The Potter Building was especially criticized by professional architectural journals. A Real Estate Record and Guide writer remarked in 1885 that "there is not an interesting or refined piece of detail in the whole building". The critic also said that the building's design focused too much on its vertical aspect, though this contrasted with the opinions of other contemporary critics, who generally saw vertical emphasis favorably. In 1889,

16380-640: The Wall Street area. In 1998, the NYSE and the city struck a $ 900 million deal which kept the NYSE from moving across the river to Jersey City ; the deal was described as the "largest in city history to prevent a corporation from leaving town". A competitor to the NYSE, NASDAQ , moved its headquarters from Washington to New York. In 1987, the stock market plunged and, in the relatively brief recession following, lower Manhattan lost 100,000 jobs according to one estimate. Since telecommunications costs were coming down, banks and brokerage firms could move away from

16562-636: 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

16744-420: The World Trade Center but moved to Church Street; merchants bought extra unsold items at steep prices and sold them as a discount to consumers, and shoppers included "thrifty homemakers and browsing retirees" who "rubbed elbows with City Hall workers and Wall Street executives"; but the firm went bust in 1993. There were reports that the number of residents increased by 60% during the 1990s to about 25,000 although

16926-402: The World Trade Center, lay on their sides across sidewalks. Most subway stations were closed, most lights were still off, most telephones did not work, and only a handful of people walked in the narrow canyons of Wall Street yesterday morning. Still, the NYSE was determined to re-open on September 17, almost a week after the attack. After September 11, the financial services industry went through

17108-531: The addition of areas such as Battery Park City and Southbridge Towers . Battery Park City was built on 92 acres of landfill, and 3,000 people moved there beginning about 1982, but by 1986 there was evidence of more shops and stores and a park, along with plans for more residential development. Construction of the World Trade Center began in 1966, but the World Trade Center had trouble attracting tenants when completed. Nonetheless, some substantial firms purchased space there. Its impressive height helped make it

17290-636: The adjoining lot immediately to its north (which is occupied by 41 Park Row ), was the site of the Old Brick Church of the Brick Presbyterian Church , built in 1767-1768 by John McComb Sr. Starting in the early 19th century and continuing through the 1920s, the surrounding area grew into the city's "Newspaper Row"; several newspaper headquarters were built on Park Row, including the New York Times Building ,

17472-646: The ages of 25–44, while 14% are between 0–17, and 18% between 45–64. The ratio of college-aged and elderly residents was lower, at 11% and 7% respectively. As of 2017, the median household income in Community Districts 1 and 2 (including Greenwich Village and SoHo ) was $ 144,878. In 2018, an estimated 9% of Financial District and Lower Manhattan residents lived in poverty, compared to 14% in all of Manhattan and 20% in all of New York City. One in twenty-five residents (4%) were unemployed, compared to 7% in Manhattan and 9% in New York City. Rent burden, or

17654-406: The area around historic Trinity Church. Cars, however, cannot pass. The destruction of the World Trade Center spurred development on a scale that had not been seen in decades. Tax incentives provided by federal, state and local governments encouraged development. A new World Trade Center complex centered on Daniel Libeskind 's Memory Foundations was after the 9/11 attacks. The centerpiece, which

17836-535: The area is the New York Stock Exchange . City authorities realize its importance, and believed that it has "outgrown its neoclassical temple at the corner of Wall and Broad streets", and in 1998 offered substantial tax incentives to try to keep it in the Financial District. Plans to rebuild it were delayed by the September 11, 2001, attacks. The Exchange still occupies the same site. The Exchange

18018-420: The area that were in the finance and insurance industries declined from 55 to 30 percent. For census purposes, the New York City government classifies the Financial District as part of a larger neighborhood tabulation area called Battery Park City-Lower Manhattan. Based on data from the 2010 United States Census , the population of Battery Park City-Lower Manhattan was 39,699, an increase of 19,611 (97.6%) from

18200-663: The area were laid out as part of the Castello Plan prior to the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 , a grid plan that dictates the placement of most of Manhattan's streets north of Houston Street . Thus, it has small streets "barely wide enough for a single lane of traffic are bordered on both sides by some of the tallest buildings in the city", according to one description, which creates "breathtaking artificial canyons". Some streets have been designated as pedestrian-only with vehicular traffic prohibited. The Financial District

18382-466: The area's heyday. The address of 23 Wall Street , the headquarters of J. P. Morgan & Company , known as The Corner , was "the precise center, geographical as well as metaphorical, of financial America and even of the financial world". On September 16, 1920, close to the corner of Wall and Broad Street , the busiest corner of the Financial District and across the offices of the Morgan Bank ,

18564-425: The beams have a uniform length of 18.33 feet (5.59 m). Flat brick arches were placed within each set of floor beams and were leveled with concrete, brick, and stone aggregate. The floors were finished with wood, while the ceilings were finished in plaster. Potter's original plans for the building were for the first floor to contain bank offices and for the upper floors to be used by other businesses. He wished for

18746-413: The building in 1954. The New York World and Tribune buildings to the north were demolished in the 1950s and 1960s, and Pace College (later Pace University ) built 1 Pace Plaza on the site of the latter. The university also acquired the Potter Building and other nearby buildings in 1973, with plans to destroy them and build an office tower. These plans did not proceed and Pace sold the building in 1979 to

18928-710: The building. Potter died in 1894, and the building was given over to his estate. O.B. Potter Properties acquired the building from Potter's estate in 1913. The Potter Building, along with some of the Potter estate's other properties (such as the Empire Building ), was sold in 1919 to the Aronson Investing Company. The building's ownership was then transferred several times within a decade: the Parbee Realty Corporation acquired

19110-464: 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

19292-442: The burned-down edifice with a fireproof structure, having incurred more than $ 200,000 of losses (equivalent to $ 6 million in 2023) in addition to loss of income. By mid-February 1882, Potter was planning to construct an 11-story building at the site of the old World building, which he specified should be fireproof. In 1883, Starkweather presented plans for the structure, of which the first two stories would have an iron facade and

19474-476: 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

19656-421: The city. By 2010 the residential population had increased to 24,400 residents. and the area was growing with luxury high-end apartments and upscale retailers. On October 29, 2012, New York and New Jersey were inundated by Hurricane Sandy . Its 14-foot-high storm surge, a local record, caused massive street flooding in many parts of Lower Manhattan. Power to the area was knocked out by a transformer explosion at

19838-538: The citywide averages of 24%, 11%, and 28% respectively. In addition, 5% of children are obese, the lowest rate in the city, compared to the citywide average of 20%. Ninety-six percent of residents eat some fruits and vegetables every day, which is more than the city's average of 87%. In 2018, 88% of residents described their health as "good", "very good", or "excellent", more than the city's average of 78%. For every supermarket in Financial District and Lower Manhattan, there are 6 bodegas . The nearest major hospital

20020-473: 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

20202-476: The components of a column , namely a base, midsection, and capital . The base comprises the bottom two stories, the midsection included the middle seven stories, and the capital was composed of the top two floors. The base has an iron facade and the remaining stories have a red brick and terracotta facade. Each side has similar ornamentation, containing column capitals , pediments , corbels , panels, and segmental arches made of terracotta . The ornamental detail

20384-639: 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

20566-460: 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

20748-508: 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

20930-494: 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

21112-465: 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

21294-513: The entire project. Since the World building fire had occurred during the construction of Potter's 750 Broadway building in NoHo , further uptown, workers from the 750 Broadway project were also contracted to work on the Potter Building. Construction was delayed in May 1884 due to a bricklayers' strike, and the costs increased to $ 1.2 million (equivalent to $ 41 million in 2023). Work was also delayed by

21476-595: 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

21658-704: The first U.S. capitol and the first inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States , is located at the corner of Wall Street and Nassau Street . The Financial District has a number of tourist attractions such as the South Street Seaport Historic District, newly renovated Pier 17, the New York City Police Museum , the Museum of American Finance , the National Museum of

21840-459: The first decade of the 20th century. The demand for new office space to hold 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

22022-437: The first floor to 20 inches (510 mm) at the eleventh floor. They contain concealed flues that ventilate the gases from the building's furnaces into hidden chimneys underneath the finials atop each pier. The lintels on the upper stories, clad with terracotta, consist of four parallel wrought-iron beams with a width of 21 to 32 inches (530 to 810 mm) between flanges . The lintel beams sit atop iron plates embedded within

22204-481: 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

22386-504: 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

22568-418: 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

22750-512: 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

22932-474: The general pattern of crowds during the working hours and emptiness at night was still apparent. There were also ten hotels and thirteen museums in 2010. In 2007 the French fashion retailer Hermès opened a store in the Financial District to sell items such as a "$ 4,700 custom-made leather dressage saddle or a $ 47,000 limited edition alligator briefcase". However, there are reports of panhandlers like elsewhere in

23114-420: The ground level and containing rentable offices on 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

23296-479: 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

23478-440: 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, the city of Chicago became the other major site in the development of early skyscrapers. In contrast to New York, Chicago emerged as

23660-431: 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

23842-555: The iron structure was more suitable for use, since the iron floor suffered little damage compared to the totally-burned wooden floor. Plans for the Potter Building were filed with the New York City Department of Buildings in July 1883, at which point it was supposed to cost $ 700,000 (equivalent to $ 23 million in 2023). Construction was underway by mid-1884. Workers were hired by the day, rather than contracted for

24024-477: The irregularity of the lot; the irregularity, of course, appearing in the court itself". A writer for the Fireman's Herald stated that the court split the facade so that "it looks almost like two buildings". There is a fire escape in the middle of the light court. At the time of the Potter Building's construction, the facades of many 19th-century early skyscrapers consisted of three horizontal sections similar to

24206-418: The late 17th century. The district comprises the offices and headquarters of many of the city's major financial institutions , including the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York . Anchored on Wall Street in the Financial District, New York City has been called both the leading financial center and the most economically powerful city of the world, and the New York Stock Exchange

24388-406: The lot for $ 350,000 (equivalent to $ 11 million in 2023); it became the first headquarters of the New York World , which was established in 1860. Potter purchased the building outright in 1867. A fire broke out in the World building around 10:00 p.m. on January 31, 1882, supposedly because of a draft of wind from the nearby Temple Court Building . The fire destroyed much of the block within

24570-557: 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

24752-420: The masonry of each pier and anchored with a twisted iron strap. Because of the presence of elevator lobbies at the northern end of the building, the northernmost bays on Park Row and Nassau Street are wider. At Park Row and Beekman Street, a 270-degree-wide column rounds out the corner. The Potter Building is among the oldest remaining buildings in New York City to retain architectural terracotta. The terracotta

24934-441: The most advanced fireproofing methods available at the time of construction, due to its predecessor having burned down. This included the use of rolled iron beams, cast iron columns, brick exterior walls, as well as tile arches and terracotta. Five iron companies provided the material. The fireproofing is insulated by the brick-and-terracotta facade. The Potter Building, characterized by architectural historian Robert A. M. Stern as

25116-474: The most advanced fireproofing methods that were available when the building was erected between 1883 and 1886. These features included rolled iron beams, cast iron columns, brick exterior walls, tile arches, and terracotta . The Potter Building was also one of the first iron-framed buildings, and among the first to have a C-shaped floor plan, with an exterior light courtyard facing Beekman Street. The original design remains largely intact. The building replaced

25298-594: The neighborhood is in the 61st, 65th, and 66th districts, represented respectively by Charles Fall , Grace Lee , and Deborah Glick . Politically, the Financial District in New York's 10th congressional district ; as of 2022 , it is represented by Dan Goldman . Financial District and Lower Manhattan are patrolled by the 1st Precinct of the NYPD , located at 16 Ericsson Place. The 1st Precinct ranked 63rd safest out of 69 patrol areas for per-capita crime in 2010. Though

25480-414: The number of crimes is low compared to other NYPD precincts, the residential population is also much lower. As of 2018 , with a non-fatal assault rate of 24 per 100,000 people, Financial District and Lower Manhattan's rate of violent crimes per capita is less than that of the city as a whole. The incarceration rate of 152 per 100,000 people is lower than that of the city as a whole. The 1st Precinct has

25662-509: 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 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

25844-464: 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

26026-496: The percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 38% in Financial District and Lower Manhattan, compared to the boroughwide and citywide rates of 45% and 51% respectively. Based on this calculation, as of 2018 , Financial District and Lower Manhattan are considered high-income relative to the rest of the city and not gentrifying . The population of the Financial District has grown to an estimated 61,000 residents as of 2018, up from 43,000 as of 2014, which in turn

26208-423: The placement of the terracotta. The fourth and eighth floors contain windows ornamented with terracotta segmental arches; the third, fifth, sixth, seventh, and tenth-story windows contain terracotta corbels ; and the eleventh-story windows have terracotta hoods. The foundation walls of the Potter Building were 4 feet (1.2 m) thick and sunken to a depth of 22.5 feet (6.9 m). The underlying bedrock layer

26390-428: The population. The entirety of Community District 1, which comprises the Financial District and other Lower Manhattan neighborhoods, had 63,383 inhabitants as of NYC Health 's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 85.8 years. This is higher than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most inhabitants are young to middle-aged adults: half (50%) are between

26572-508: 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

26754-495: 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,

26936-413: 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

27118-427: 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

27300-544: 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

27482-459: The remainder would have a brick facade. Potter decided to defer construction for one year due to the high cost of acquiring materials. Construction of the foundation started in April 1883. To test the relative strength of iron versus wooden floor beams, Potter built two small, nearly-identical structures, one with each material. After setting them on fire for two to three days, Potter determined that

27664-529: 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

27846-435: 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

28028-580: 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

28210-474: 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

28392-475: 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

28574-475: The south, and Nassau Street for about 90 feet (27 m) to the east. The northern wall abuts 41 Park Row on the same block for 104 feet (32 m). The Morse Building and 150 Nassau Street are across Nassau Street, while 5 Beekman Street is across Beekman Street. The corner of Park Row and Beekman Street is at an acute angle. The Potter Building's addresses include 35–38 Park Row, 2–8 Beekman Street, and 138–145 Nassau Street. The 11-story Potter Building

28756-495: 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

28938-412: 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

29120-537: 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

29302-534: The structure in 1923, followed by A.M. Bing & Son in 1929, and the 38 Park Row Corporation in 1931, before Parbee re-acquired the Potter Building the following year. The Seaman's Bank for Savings acquired the structure at a foreclosure auction in 1941, and four years later, sold it to Beepark Estates. Tenants throughout this time included the United States Housing Authority , accountants, and lawyers. The 38 Park Row Corporation purchased

29484-424: 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

29666-439: The teenage birth rate is based on a small sample size. Financial District and Lower Manhattan have a low population of residents who are uninsured . In 2018, this population of uninsured residents was estimated to be 4%, less than the citywide rate of 12%, though this was based on a small sample size. The concentration of fine particulate matter , the deadliest type of air pollutant , in Financial District and Lower Manhattan

29848-476: 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

30030-471: The term is sometimes used as a synonym for Wall Street , the latter term is often applied metonymously to the financial markets as a whole (and is also a street in the district), whereas "the Financial District" implies an actual geographical location. The Financial District is part of Manhattan Community Board 1 , which also includes five other neighborhoods ( Battery Park City , Civic Center , Greenwich South , Seaport , and Tribeca ). The streets in

30212-533: The time of its completion, the Potter Building was among the tallest in the area, towering above every other structure except the New York Tribune Building. The Boston Globe called the Potter Building "the tallest straight-wall building in the world". The 1892 King's Handbook of New York City stated that newspapers, magazines, insurance companies, and lawyers occupied 200 offices within the building. The newspaper tenants included The Press ,

30394-441: 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

30576-438: 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

30758-572: 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 the form exist in Europe, especially the United Kingdom. The Ditherington Flax Mill

30940-515: 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,

31122-495: 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

31304-458: 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 was one of the centers of early skyscraper construction and had a history as

31486-535: 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

31668-545: 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

31850-427: 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

32032-434: 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

32214-482: Was more than 100 feet (30 m) below the ground, so the foundations were placed on separate pier footings. The site is 44 feet (13 m) above groundwater. During the construction of the New York City Subway 's IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line ( 2 and ​ 3 trains) underneath Beekman Street in 1915, the southern elevation was underpinned using concrete-and-steel tubes sunk to

32396-661: Was nearly double the 23,000 recorded at the 2000 Census. In the New York City Council , the Financial District is part of District 1 , represented by Democrat Christopher Marte . List of aldermen /councilmen who have represented the Financial District The Financial District is part of New York's 27th State Senate district , represented by Brian P. Kavanagh . In the New York State Assembly ,

32578-408: 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

32760-486: Was sculpted by the Boston Terra Cotta Company and was more highly detailed than in other contemporary buildings. At the time, there were no terracotta companies in New York City, and four other firms competed to supply the building's terracotta. The structure ultimately included 540 short tons (480 long tons; 490 t) of terracotta. Boston Terra Cotta Company superintendent James Taylor supervised

32942-410: 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 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

33124-459: 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

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