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188-634: The Woolworth Building is a 792-foot-tall (241 m) residential building and early skyscraper at 233 Broadway in the Tribeca neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City , United States. Designed by Cass Gilbert , it was the tallest building in the world from 1913 to 1929, and it remains one of the nation's 100 tallest buildings as of 2024. The Woolworth Building is bounded by Broadway and City Hall Park to its east, Park Place to its north, and Barclay Street to its south. It consists of

376-498: A New York Times article two days later, Woolworth said that his building would rise 750 feet (230 m) to its tip. These plans called for a 30-story base and 25-story square tower above it. The 750-foot height was the absolute minimum that Woolworth would agree to, but Gilbert increased the height tp 792-foot (241 m) so the architectural proportions would fit. Renderings by illustrator Hughson Hawley , completed in April 1911, are

564-428: 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

752-418: A revolving door and a Tudor window; it is flanked by standard doors and framed with decorations. There is a pelican above this smaller arch. Decorated revolving doors are also located at the northern and southern entrances, at Park Place and Barclay Street respectively. The Park Place and Barclay Street entrances are nearly identical, except for the arrangement of the storefronts. Both entrances are located on

940-420: A steel frame structural system in the late 19th century eliminated the need for structural setbacks. The use of a frame building technology combined with conveniences such as elevators and motorized water pumps influenced the physical growth and density of buildings in large cities . Driven by the desire to maximize the usable floor area, some developers avoided the use of setbacks, creating in many instances

1128-418: A 30-story base topped by a 30-story tower. Its facade is mostly clad with architectural terracotta , though the lower portions are limestone , and it features thousands of windows. The ornate lobby contains various sculptures, mosaics, and architectural touches. The structure was designed with several amenities and attractions, including a now-closed observatory on the 57th floor and a private swimming pool in

1316-610: A 30-story building rising from the site. Because of the change in plans, the organization of the Broadway-Park Place Company was rearranged. Woolworth would be the major investor in the Broadway–Park Place Company, contributing $ 1 million, and the bank would contribute the other $ 500,000. The Irving Bank would take up a 25-year lease for the ground floor, fourth floor, and basement. By September 1910, Gilbert had designed an even taller structure, with

1504-501: A 40-story tower on Park Place adjacent to a shorter 25-story annex, yielding a 550-foot (170 m)-tall building. The next month, Gilbert's design had evolved into a 45-story building roughly the height of the nearby Singer Building . This proposal called for a neo-Gothic structure with a 26-story base, topped by a square tower rising another 19 stories. After the latest design, Woolworth wrote to Gilbert in November 1910 and asked for

1692-593: A 56-page brochure outlining the building's features. Schuyler later described the Woolworth Building as the "noblest offspring" of buildings erected with steel skeletons. On completion, the Woolworth Building topped the record set by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower as the world's tallest building, a distinction it held until 1929. Woolworth had purchased all of the Broadway-Park Place Company's shares from

1880-458: 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

2068-566: A building must have a pitched roof or be set back before rising to the permitted height. In many cities, building setbacks add value to the interior real estate adjacent to the setback by creating usable exterior spaces. These setback terraces are prized for the access they provide to fresh air, skyline views, and recreational uses such as gardening and outdoor dining. In addition, setbacks promote fire safety by spacing buildings and their protruding parts away from each other and allow for passage of firefighting apparatus between buildings. In

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2256-450: 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

2444-551: 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

2632-702: 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

2820-470: A comprehensive cleaning campaign of the Woolworth's facade to remove blackening caused by the city's soot and pollution. The Ehrenkrantz Group restored the building's facade between 1977 and 1981. During the renovation, much of the terracotta was replaced with concrete and Gothic ornament was removed. The building has several thousand windows: the exact number is disputed, but various sources state that

3008-407: A constantly rotating lamp at the apex of the Woolworth Building's roof. Ultimately, the builders decided to erect nitrogen lamps and reflectors above the 31st floor, and have the intensity of the lighting increase with height. In contrast to other parts of Manhattan, the bedrock beneath the site is relatively deep, descending to between 110 and 115 feet (34 and 35 m) on average. The site also has

3196-596: A doubt his ego was a thing of extraordinary size; whoever tried to find a reason for his tall building and did not take that fact into account would reach a false conclusion." Even after the revised height was unveiled, Woolworth still yearned to make the building even taller as it was now close to the 700-foot (210 m) height of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower , then the tallest building in New York City and

3384-693: A grand dinner on the building's 27th floor for over 900 guests, and at exactly 7:30 p.m. EST , President Woodrow Wilson pushed a button in Washington, D.C. , to turn on the building's lights. Attendees included: Francis Hopkinson Smith , who served as toastmaster; author William Winter ; businessmen Patrick Francis Murphy and Charles M. Schwab ; Rhode Island Governor Aram J. Pothier ; Judge Thomas C. T. Crain ; US Senator from Arkansas Joseph Taylor Robinson ; Ecuadorian minister Gonzalo Córdova ; New York Supreme Court Justices Charles L. Guy and Edward Everett McCall ; Commissioner of Education of

3572-482: 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

3760-652: 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

3948-412: 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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4136-439: A high water table , which is as shallow as 15 feet (4.6 m) beneath ground level. Due to the geology of the area, the building is supported on either 66 or 69 massive caissons that descend to the bedrock. The caissons range in depth from 100 to 120 feet (30 to 37 m). To give the structure a sturdy foundation, the builders used metal tubes 19 feet (5.8 m) in diameter filled with concrete. These tubes were driven into

4324-510: 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

4512-461: 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

4700-502: 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

4888-486: 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

5076-492: A narrow interior court for light. The base occupies the entire lot between Park Place to the north, Broadway to the east, and Barclay Street to the south. The site measures 155 feet (47 m) wide on Broadway and 200 feet (61 m) wide on both Park Place and Barclay Street. The base contains two "wings" extending westward, one each on the Park Place and Barclay Street frontages, which form a rough U-shape when combined with

5264-561: 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

5452-535: 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

5640-599: A phone call from Woolworth one day. The architect had recently finished designing the nearby Broadway–Chambers Building and 90 West Street , whose architecture Woolworth admired. Woolworth wanted his new structure to be of similar design to the Palace of Westminster in London, which was designed in the Gothic style. At the time, Gilbert was well known for constructing modern skyscrapers with historicizing design elements. Gilbert

5828-486: 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

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6016-492: A portrait of himself. The Woolworth Building contains a system of high-speed elevators capable of traveling 650 feet (200 m) or 700 feet (210 m) per minute. The Otis Elevator Company supplied the units, which consisted of express elevators that ran nonstop between selected floors, as well as local elevators that stopped at every floor between a certain range. There were 26 Otis electric elevators with gearless traction, as well as an electric-drum shuttle elevator within

6204-751: A range of fire safety and health hazards. Thus, the 38-story Equitable Building , constructed in New York in 1915, produced a huge shadow, said to "cast a noonday shadow four blocks long", which effectively deprived neighboring properties of sunlight. It resulted in the 1916 Zoning Resolution , which gave New York City's skyscrapers their typical setbacks and soaring designs. Today many jurisdictions rely on urban planning regulations, such as zoning ordinances , which use setbacks to make sure that streets and yards are provided more open space and adequate light and air. For example, in high density districts, such as Manhattan in New York , front walls of buildings at

6392-416: 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

6580-399: 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:

6768-558: A special train from Washington, DC. Additional congratulations were sent via letter from former President William Howard Taft , Governor of New Jersey James Fairman Fielder and United States Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels . The building was declared ready for occupancy on May 1, 1913, and Woolworth began renting the offices at a minimum rate of $ 4 per square foot ($ 43/m). To attract tenants, Woolworth hired architecture critic Montgomery Schuyler to write

6956-497: A stained-glass skylight surrounded by the names of several nations. The skylight contains the dates 1879 and 1913, which respectively signify the years of the Woolworth Company's founding and the building's opening. The skylight is also surrounded by sculpted grotesques, which depict merchandising activities in the five-and-dime industry. Heinigke and Brown manufactured the leaded glass of the mezzanine ceiling, as well as

7144-416: A total cost of $ 1.65 million (about $ 39 million in 2023). Woolworth commissioned Cass Gilbert to design the new building. There are few print documents that indicate early correspondence between Woolworth and Gilbert, and news articles as late as March 1910 mentioned that no architect had been chosen. Gilbert later mentioned that he had received the commission for the Woolworth Building after getting

7332-442: 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

7520-462: A visit to the Château de Compiègne shortly after the building opened. These included a bronze bust of Napoleon , a set of French Empire-style lamps with gold figures, and an inkwell with a depiction of Napoleon on horseback. The walls of the office contained portraits of Napoleon, and gold-and-scarlet chairs were arranged around the room. At some point, Woolworth replaced the portrait of Napoleon with

7708-523: Is a separate street from Broadway. Woolworth and the Irving National Exchange Bank then set up the Broadway–Park Place Company to construct and finance the proposed structure. Initially, the bank was supposed to purchase the company's stock gradually until it owned the entire company, and thus, the Woolworth Building. Irving would be able to manage the 18 floors on a 25-year lease. In addition, Irving would be able to control two of

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7896-421: Is a three-story Tudor arch , surrounded on either side by two bays: one narrower than the main arch, the other wider. The five bays form a triumphal arch overhung by a balcony and stone motifs of Gothic design. The intrados of the arch contains 23 niches. The topmost niche depicts an owl; the lowest niches on both sides depict tree trunks; and the other twenty niches depict animated figures. The spandrel above

8084-415: Is a two-story room located to the west of the arcade. It consists of the ground level, which contains former storefronts, as well as a mezzanine level above it. The ground floor originally contained 18 storefronts. A 15-foot-wide (4.6 m) marble staircase leads westward from the arcade to a mezzanine, where the entrance to the Irving National Exchange Bank office was formerly located. The mezzanine contains

8272-626: 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

8460-542: 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

8648-424: Is capped by a spire. The three layers of pyramids are about 62 feet (19 m), or five stories tall. An observation deck was located at the 55th floor, about 730 feet (220 m) above ground level. The deck was octagonal in plan, measuring 65 feet (20 m) across, was accessed by a glass-walled elevator. It was patronized by an estimated 300,000 visitors per year but was closed as a security measure in 1941 after

8836-428: 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,

9024-586: Is the step pyramids of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt , such as the Teppe Sialk ziggurat or the Pyramid of Djoser . For centuries, setbacks were a structural necessity for virtually all multi-level load-bearing masonry buildings and structures. As architects learned how to turn setbacks into an architectural feature, most setbacks were however less pronounced than in step pyramids and often skillfully masked by rich ornamentation . The introduction of

9212-694: 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

9400-549: 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

9588-468: The New York Times reported Woolworth was planning a 625 feet (191 m) building at a cost of $ 5 million. That month, Woolworth and Hogan acquired the final site for the project. In total, the site had cost $ 4.5 million (about $ 107 million in 2023) and measured 152 feet (46 m) on Broadway, 192.5 feet (58.7 m) on Barclay Street, and 197.83 feet (60 m) on Park Place. In

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9776-483: The Pearl Harbor attack . Strongly articulated piers , which carry right to the pyramidal cap without intermediate cornices , give the building its upward thrust. This was influenced by Aus's belief that, "From an engineering point of view, no structure is beautiful where the lines of strength are not apparent." The copper roof is connected to the Woolworth Building's steel superstructure , which serves to ground

9964-649: 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,

10152-523: The United States , setback requirements vary among municipalities . For example, the absence of sky exposure plane provisions in Chicago 's Zoning Code makes the Chicago skyline quite different from the skyline of New York where construction of tall buildings was guided by the zoning ordinance since 1916. The New York City Zoning Ordinance also provided another kind of setback guideline, one that

10340-1272: 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 ,

10528-480: 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

10716-507: 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

10904-555: 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:

11092-426: The street line may be limited to a specified height or number of stories. This height is also called base height. Above that height, the buildings are required to set back behind a theoretical inclined plane, called sky exposure plane , which cannot be penetrated by the building's exterior wall. For the same reason, setbacks may also be used in lower density districts to limit the height of perimeter walls above which

11280-520: The "arcade", was characterized by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) as "one of the most spectacular of the early 20th century in New York City". It consists of two perpendicular, double-height passageways with barrel-vaulted ceilings. One passageway runs between the arcade's west wing at the Woolworth Building's "staircase hall" and the east wing at Broadway. The other runs between

11468-644: 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

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11656-424: 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

11844-581: 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

12032-489: 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

12220-519: The 24th floor, revetted in green marble in the French Empire style , is preserved in its original condition. His office included a mahogany desk with a leather top measuring 7.5 by 3.75 feet (2.29 by 1.14 m). That desk contained a hidden console with four buttons to request various members of his staff. The marble columns in the office are capped by gilded Corinthian capitals . Woolworth's reception room contained objects that were inspired by

12408-432: The 28th floor, a two-story-tall copper roof with complex tracery in the Gothic style tops the canopies. The 29th and 30th stories of the north and south wings are of similar depth to the six narrow bays on the Park Place and Barclay Street elevations but contain five bays. A small tower with three bays caps these wings. The 30th through 45th floors contain three bays on each elevation; the side bays contain two windows, while

12596-434: The 53rd floor is the top floor that can be occupied. Above the 53rd floor, the tower tapers into a pyramidal roof. The lowest four stories are clad in limestone . Above that, the exterior of the Woolworth Building was cast in limestone-colored, glazed architectural terracotta panels. F. W. Woolworth initially wanted to clad the skyscraper in granite , while Gilbert wanted to use limestone. The decision to use terracotta for

12784-464: 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

12972-570: 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

13160-489: The Broadway elevation. In addition, horizontal belt courses run above the 4th, 9th, 14th, 19th, and 24th stories. The 25th and 26th stories, above the topmost belt course, are separated by dark-bronze spandrels. The 27th floor contains a canopy of projecting terracotta ogee arches. These decorative features make the tower section "appear to merge with the atmosphere", as architectural writer Donald Reynolds described it. Above

13348-421: The Broadway frontage. This ensured that all offices had outside views. The U-shaped base is approximately 30 stories tall. All four elevations of the base are decorated, since the building has frontage on all sides. The tower rises an additional 30 stories above the eastern side of the base, abutting Broadway. Above the 30th floor are setbacks on the north and south elevations. There are additional setbacks along

13536-514: The Broadway–Park Place Company's seats, while Woolworth would control the other three seats and serve as that firm's president. While negotiations to create the Broadway-Park Place Company were ongoing, Woolworth and his real estate agent Edward J. Hogan purchased several parcels from the Trenor Luther Park estate and other owners. The entire footprint of the current building, a rectangular lot, had been acquired by April 15, 1910, at

13724-478: 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

13912-459: The F. W. Woolworth Company. Early skyscraper 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

14100-402: The Irving National Exchange Bank by May 1914; his company held no ownership stake in the building. The bank, whose only involvement in the building was now as a tenant, agreed to lease the entire second story for $ 100,000 a year. The building contained offices for as many as 14,000 employees. By the end of 1914, the building was 70% occupied and generating over $ 1.3 million a year in rents for

14288-521: 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

14476-690: 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

14664-573: 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

14852-764: The State of New York John Huston Finley ; Collector of the Port of New York William Loeb Jr. ; naval architect Lewis Nixon ; Rear Admiral Charles Dwight Sigsbee ; Commissioner of Docks and Ferries of the City of New York R. A. C. Smith ; Colonel William Conant Church ; United States Representative from New York Herman A. Metz ; New York City Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo ; banker James Speyer ; former Lieutenant Governor of New York Timothy L. Woodruff ; writer Robert Sterling Yard ; Admiral Albert Gleaves ; and reportedly between 69 and 80 congressmen who arrived via

15040-567: 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

15228-403: The Woolworth Building has 2,843, 4,400, or 5,000 windows. Windows were included for lighting and comfort; because the Woolworth Building was built before air conditioning became common, every office is within 10 feet (3.0 m) of a window. Most of the windows are the same size, and each story is the same height. Some of the Woolworth Building's windows are set within arch-shaped openings. Most of

15416-501: The Woolworth Building in the neo-Gothic style . The building resembles European Gothic cathedrals; Reverend S. Parkes Cadman dubbed it "The Cathedral of Commerce" in a booklet published in 1916. F. W. Woolworth , who had devised the idea for the Woolworth Building, had proposed using the Victoria Tower as a model for the building; he reportedly also admired the design of Palace of Westminster . Gilbert, by contrast, disliked

15604-423: The Woolworth Building's steel superstructure was relatively thin, which enabled Gilbert to maximize the building's interior area. Engineers Gunvald Aus and Kort Berle designed the steel frame. Each column carries a load of 24 short tons per square foot (2.3  MPa ), supporting the building's overall weight of 233,000 short tons (208,000 long tons). Where the columns of the superstructure did not match up with

15792-529: The Woolworth Company (later Venator Group ) continued to own the Woolworth Building for most of the 20th century. The structure was sold to the Witkoff Group in 1998. The top 30 floors were sold to a developer in 2012 and converted into residences. Office and commercial tenants use the rest of the building. The Woolworth Building has been a National Historic Landmark since 1966, and a New York City designated landmark since 1983. Cass Gilbert designed

15980-528: The barrel vault of the lobby. There is a smaller space west of the staircase hall with a one-story-high ceiling. This room contains a coffered ceiling with a blue-green background. The crossbeams contain Roman portrait heads, while the cornice contains generic sculpted grotesques. The lobby also contains a set of German chimes designed by Harry Yerkes . The basement of the Woolworth Building contains an unused bank vault, restaurant, and barbershop. The bank vault

16168-512: The basement. F. W. Woolworth , the founder of a brand of popular five-and-ten-cent stores , conceived the skyscraper as a headquarters for his company. Woolworth planned the skyscraper jointly with the Irving Trust , which also agreed to use the structure as its headquarters. The Woolworth Building had originally been planned as a 12- to 16-story commercial building but underwent several revisions during its planning process. Its final height

16356-519: The building from their foundries in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh; manufacturing took over 45 weeks. The first above-ground steel had been erected by October 1911, and installation of the building's terracotta began on February 1, 1912. The building rose at the rate of 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 stories a week and the steelworkers set a speed record for assembling 1,153 tons of steel in six consecutive eight-hour days. By February 18, 1912, work on

16544-440: The building's center of mass , making it more stable. A setback as a minimum one-bay indent across all stories is called a recessed bay or recess and is the more common exterior form of an alcove . Notable upper stories forming a step-back may form a belvedere – and in residential use are considered the penthouse . If part of the roof, then they are a loft or attic / garret . Setbacks were used by people to increase

16732-492: The building's spandrels , or triangles between the top corners of the window and the top of the arch, have golden Gothic tracery against a bright blue backdrop. On the 25th, 39th, and 40th stories, the spandrels consist of iconography found in the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom . Gold-on-blue tracery is also found on the 26th, 27th, and 42nd floors. On the part of the base facing Broadway, as well as

16920-409: The building's construction, are placed where the arcade and the mezzanine intersect. These ornaments include Gilbert with a model of the building, Aus taking a girder's measurements, and Woolworth holding nickels and dimes. Two ceiling murals by C. Paul Jennewein , titled Labor and Commerce , are located above the mezzanine where it crosses the south and north wings, respectively. The staircase hall

17108-407: The building's foundations were completed ahead of the target date of September 15; construction of the skyscraper's steel frame began August 15. The steel beams and girders used in the framework weighed so much that, to prevent the streets from caving in, a group of surveyors examined them on the route along which the beams would be transported. The American Bridge Company provided steel for

17296-564: The building's frame and structural elements. The company was paid $ 300,000 for their oversight and management work, despite Woolworth's attempts to get the company to do the job for free due to the prestige of the project. The first potential tenants began applying for space in the building in May 1911, before work had even started. On June 12, 1911, the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company received a $ 250,000 contract to manufacture

17484-580: The building's height to be increased to 620 feet (190 m), which was 8 feet (2.4 m) taller than the Singer Building, Lower Manhattan's tallest building. Woolworth was inspired by his travels in Europe, where he would constantly be asked about the Singer Building. He decided that housing his company in an even taller building would provide invaluable advertising for the F. W. Woolworth Company and make it renowned worldwide. This design, unveiled to

17672-464: 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

17860-433: The caissons, they were cantilevered above on plate girders between two adjoining caissons. These girders are extremely large; one such girder measures 8 feet (2.4 m) deep, 6.75 feet (2 m) wide, and 23 feet (7.0 m) long. For the wind bracing, the entire Woolworth Building was considered as a vertical cantilever, and correspondingly large girders and columns were used in the construction. Continuous portal bracing

18048-401: The center bay contains three windows. The 46th through 53rd floors also have three bays on each elevation, but the side bays only contain one window. At the 45th- and 50th-story setbacks, there are turrets at each corner of the tower. The northeast corner turret concealed a smokestack. There is a pyramidal roof above the 53rd floor, as well as four ornamental tourelles at the four corners of

18236-476: 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

18424-473: 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

18612-517: The combined banks' headquarters to the F. W. Woolworth Company's new headquarters. Having received a commitment from the banks, Woolworth acquired a corner site on Broadway and Park Place in Lower Manhattan , opposite City Hall . Woolworth briefly considered purchasing a plot at West Broadway and Reade Street several blocks north. He decided against it because of the prestige that a Broadway address provided; despite its name, West Broadway

18800-410: The comparison to religious imagery. The architect ultimately used 15th- and 16th-century Gothic ornament on the Woolworth Building, along with a complementary color scheme. Though the building's steel frame was uncommon to neo-Gothic structures, its facade emphasizes vertical design elements, similarly to other neo-Gothic buildings. The Woolworth Building was designed to be 420 feet (130 m) high but

18988-639: 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

19176-439: The conversion of the Woolworth Building's upper floors into residential units. At the time of construction, the Woolworth Building had over 2,000 offices. Each office had ceilings ranging from 11 to 20 feet (3.4 to 6.1 m) high. Gilbert had designed the interior to maximize the amount of usable office space, and correspondingly, minimize the amount of space taken up by the elevator shafts. The usable-space consideration affected

19364-460: 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

19552-508: 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

19740-414: The details and beauty of the building's design, as well as the entrepreneur's enthusiasm for the project. Such was the scale of the building that, for several years, Gilbert's sense of scale was "destroyed [...] because of the unprecedented attuning of detail to, for these days, such an excessive height". In September 1910, wrecking crews demolished the five-and-six-story structures which previously occupied

19928-494: 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

20116-465: 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

20304-574: The eastern sides of their respective elevations, lining up with the tower above them, and contain a wide arch flanked by two narrower arches. The three entrances feed into the arcaded lobby. The building's Park Place entrance contained a stair to the New York City Subway 's Park Place station, served by the 2 and ​ 3 trains, inside the westernmost bay of the building entrance. The facade contains vertical piers , which protrude diagonally. There are six such piers on

20492-551: The equivalent of an 80-story building. It remained the tallest building in the world until 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building , both in New York City, were constructed in 1929–1930. The building is assigned its own ZIP Code , 10279; it was one of 41 buildings in Manhattan that had their own ZIP Codes as of 2019. The building's tower, flush with the main frontage on Broadway, joins an office block base with

20680-493: The facade was based on both aesthetic and functional concerns. Terracotta was not only fireproof but also, in Gilbert's mind, a purely ornamental addition clarifying the Woolworth Building's steel construction. Each panel was of a slightly different color, creating a polychrome effect. The facade appeared to have a uniform tone, but the upper floors were actually darker and more dense . Behind the terracotta panels were brick walls;

20868-595: 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

21056-563: The facade. The basement also contains closed entrances to two New York City Subway stations. There was an entrance to the Park Place station directly adjacent to the building's north elevation, served by the 2 and ​ 3 trains. This entrance was closed after the September 11 attacks in 2001. Another entrance led to the City Hall station one block north, now served by the R and ​ W trains, but this

21244-459: 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

21432-478: The first official materials that reflect this final height. Gilbert had to reconcile both Woolworth's and Pierson's strict requirements for the design of the structure. The architect's notes describe late-night conversations that he had with both men. The current design of the lobby, with its arcade, reflected these conflicting pressures. Sometimes, Gilbert also faced practical conundrums, such as Woolworth's requirement that there be "many windows so divided that all of

21620-481: 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

21808-504: 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

21996-418: 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

22184-512: 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

22372-427: The general construction company. George A. Fuller 's Fuller Company was well experienced and had practically invented skyscraper construction, but Louis Horowitz's Thompson-Starrett Company was local to New York; despite being newer, Horowitz had worked for Fuller before, and thus had a similar knowledge base. On April 20, 1911, Thompson-Starrett won the contract with a guaranteed construction price of $ 4,308,500 for

22560-420: 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

22748-443: The ground with a pneumatic caisson process to anchor the foundations to the bedrock. Because the slope of the bedrock was so sharp, steps had to be carved into the rock before the caissons could be sunk into the ground. The caissons were both round and rectangular, with the rectangular caissons located mainly on the southern and western lot lines. The caissons are irregularly distributed across the site, being more densely concentrated at

22936-479: 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

23124-440: 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

23312-406: The height of masonry structures by distributing gravity loads produced by building materials such as clay, stone, or brick. This was achieved by regularly reducing the footprint of each level located successively farther from the ground. Setbacks also allowed the natural erosion to occur without compromising the structural integrity of the building. The most prominent example of a setback technique

23500-447: The hot-water plant, the fire-protection system, the communal restrooms, the offices with restrooms, the basement swimming pool, and the basement restaurant. There are water tanks on the 14th, 27th, 28th, 50th, and 53rd floors. Although the water is obtained from the New York City water supply system , much of it is filtered and reused. A dedicated water system, separate from the city's, was proposed during construction, but workers abandoned

23688-431: 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

23876-432: The initial estimates of US$ 5 million for the shorter versions of the skyscraper (equivalent to $ 154,000,000 in 2023). This was divided into $ 5 million for the land, $ 1 million for the foundation, and $ 7 million for the structure. Woolworth provided $ 5 million, while investors provided the remainder, and financing was completed by August 1911. The building opened on April 24, 1913. Woolworth held

24064-485: The island of Skyros in Greece covers the lobby. Edward F. Caldwell & Co. provided the interior lights for the lobby and hallways. Patterned glass mosaics that contain blue, green, and gold tiling with red accents decorate the ceilings. There are other Gothic-style decorations in the lobby, including on the cornice and the bronze fittings. Twelve plaster brackets , which carry grotesques depicting major figures in

24252-457: The larger base that a taller tower necessitated, Woolworth bought the remainder of the frontage on Broadway between Park Place and Barclay Street. He also purchased two lots to the west, one on Park Place and one on Barclay Street; these lots would not be developed, but would retain their low-rise buildings and preserve the proposed tower's views. Such a tall building would produce the largest income of any building globally. On January 1, 1911,

24440-400: The left side of the arch depicts Mercury , classical god of commerce, while that above the right side depicts Ceres , classical goddess of agriculture. Above all of this is an ogee arch with more niches, as well as two carvings of owls hovering above a "W" monogram. There are salamanders within niches on either side of the main entrance. Inside the triumphal arch, there is a smaller arch with

24628-414: The lobby were designed by Tiffany Studios . The patterns on the doors have been described as " arabesque tracery patterns in etched steel set off against a gold-plated background". The entrepreneur F. W. Woolworth immigrated to the U.S. in 1886 and became successful because of his " Five-and-Dime " (5- and 10-cent stores). He began planning a new headquarters for the F. W. Woolworth Company in 1910. Around

24816-557: 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

25004-497: The north wing at Park Place and the south wing at Barclay Street. A mezzanine crosses the arcade's north and south wings. Where the passageways intersect, there is a domed ceiling. The dome contains pendentives that may have been patterned after those of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia . The walls of this intersection vault are laid out in an octagonal shape, with mailboxes at the four intercardinal directions . Veined marble from

25192-404: The north, south, and west elevations on the 45th and 50th floors. The 30th through 45th floors measure 84 by 86 feet (26 by 26 m); the 46th through 50th floors, 69 by 71 feet (21 by 22 m); and the 51st through 53rd floors, 69 by 61 feet (21 by 19 m). The tower has a square plan below the 50th-story setback and an octagonal plan above. Though the structure is physically 60 stories tall,

25380-455: The northeastern corner. This is because the building was originally planned to occupy a smaller site at the corner of Broadway and Park Place; when the site was enlarged, the caissons that had already been installed were left in place. The two basement levels, descending 55 feet (17 m), are constructed of reinforced concrete. Whereas many earlier buildings had been constructed with load-bearing walls , which by necessity were extremely thick,

25568-451: The offices should be well lighted", and so that tenants could erect partitions to fit their needs. Gilbert wrote this "naturally prevented any broad wall space". Woolworth commented at length on each of the dozens of drawings that Gilbert drew up. Woolworth and Gilbert sometimes clashed during the design process, especially because of the constantly changing designs and the architect's fees. Nevertheless, Gilbert commended Woolworth's devotion to

25756-509: 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

25944-464: 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

26132-456: The placement of the columns in the wings, as the columns in the main tower were positioned around the elevator shafts and facade piers. Each of the lowest 30 stories had 31 offices, of which ten faced the light court, eight faced Park Place, eight faced Barclay Street, and five faced Broadway. Above the 30th-story setback, each story had 14 offices. For reasons that are unknown, floor numbers 42, 48, and 52 are skipped. Woolworth's private office on

26320-580: The plan after unsuccessfully digging 1,500 feet (460 m) into Manhattan's bedrock. The Woolworth Building was the first structure to have its own power plant with four Corliss steam engine generators totaling a capacity of 1,500 kilowatt-hours (5.4 × 10 mJ); the plant could support 50,000 people. The building also had a dedicated heating plant with six boilers with a capacity of 2,500 horsepower (1,900 kW). The boilers were fed from subterranean coal bunkers capable of holding over 2,000 tons of anthracite coal . The ornate, cruciform lobby, known as

26508-508: 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

26696-495: 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,

26884-485: The public the same month, was a 45-story tower rising 625 feet (191 m), sitting on a lot by 105 by 197 feet (32 by 60 m). Referring to the revised plans, Woolworth said, "I do not want a mere building. I want something that will be an ornament to the city." He later said that he wanted visitors to brag that they had visited the world's tallest building. Louis J. Horowitz, president of the building's main contractor Thompson-Starrett Company , said of Woolworth, "Beyond

27072-413: 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

27260-427: 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

27448-544: 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

27636-529: 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

27824-435: 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

28012-498: The roof electrically. The Gothic detailing concentrated at the highly visible crown is over-scaled, and the building's silhouette could be made out from several miles away. Gilbert's choice of the Gothic style was described as "an expression of the verticality of the tower form", and as Gilbert himself later wrote, the style was "light, graceful, delicate and flame-like". Gilbert considered several proposals for exterior lighting, including four powerful searchlights atop nearby buildings and

28200-483: The same time, Woolworth's friend Lewis Pierson was having difficulty getting shareholder approval for the merger of his Irving National Bank and the rival New York Exchange Bank . Woolworth, who was looking for funding, mentioned his plans for the building at a lunch with Pierson. Woolworth offered to acquire shares in New York Exchange Bank and vote in favor of the merger if Pierson agreed to move

28388-516: The site. Construction officially began on November 4, 1910, with excavation by the Foundation Company, using a contract negotiated personally by Frank Woolworth. The start of construction instantly raised the site's value from $ 2.25 million to $ 3.2 million. The contract of over $ 1 million was described as the largest contract for foundation construction ever awarded in the world. It took months for Woolworth to decide upon

28576-632: 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

28764-462: The skyscraper impinged on the rights of the rest of the city by destroying the collective appearance of an urban area. Some architects, such as Charles McKim and Stanford White refused to work on such projects altogether. Setback (architecture) A setback , in the specific sense of a step-back , is a step-like form of a wall or other building frontage, also termed a recession or recessed story. Importantly, one or more step-backs lowers

28952-474: 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

29140-475: 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

29328-495: 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

29516-409: The steel frame had reached the building's 18th floor. By April 6, 1912, the steel frame had reached the top of the base at the 30th floor and work then began on constructing the tower of the Woolworth Building. Steel reached the 47th floor by May 30 and the official topping out ceremony took place two weeks ahead of schedule on July 1, 1912, as the last rivet was driven into the summit of

29704-412: 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

29892-537: 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

30080-424: 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

30268-476: 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

30456-483: The terracotta pieces are attached to the brick walls by metal rods and hangers. The Atlantic Terra Cotta Company provided the original terracotta cladding. The panels were manufactured in shades of blue, green, sienna, and rose. The terracotta panels were partially vitrified , allowing them to bear large loads. Gilbert also asked that John Donnelly and Eliseo V. Ricci create full-size designs based on Atlantic Terra Cotta's models. In 1932, Atlantic Terra Cotta carried out

30644-461: The terracotta. The next month, Donnelly and Ricci received the $ 11,500 contract for the terracotta work and some of the interior design work. Gilbert requested Atlantic Terra Cotta use an office next to his while they drew several hundred designs. The construction process involved hundreds of workers, and daily wages ranged from $ 1.50 for laborers (equivalent to $ 46 in 2023) to $ 4.50 for skilled workers (equivalent to $ 139 in 2023). By August 1911,

30832-442: The tower above it, there are three bays ; the left and right bays have two windows per floor, while the center bay has three windows. The elevations facing Park Place and Barclay Street each have six bays with two windows per floor. The base, on its lowest four stories, is divided into three-story-high entrance and exit bays, each of which has a one-story attic above it. There are nine entrances in total. The main entrance on Broadway

31020-451: The tower once construction was complete. Of these, 24 were passenger elevators, which were arranged around cruciform elevator lobbies on each floor. Two freight elevators and two emergency staircases were placed at the rear of the building. The elevators are accessed from bays in the eastern and western walls of the arcade. The walls are both divided by two bays with round arches, and there are four elevators on each wall. The elevator doors in

31208-441: 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

31396-411: The tower's setbacks, the outer walls are supported by girders, as the columns beneath them are offset. Above the 28th floor, knee braces and column-girder connections were used; hollow-tile floors were installed because it would have taken too long to set the concrete floors, especially during cold weather. Upon completion, the Woolworth Building contained seven water systems—one each for the power plant,

31584-399: The tower. After the building was topped out, Gilbert initially told Woolworth that he thought the building was about 787 feet (240 m) tall, but Woolworth's own engineers found the true height to be 792 feet (241 m). The skyscraper was substantially completed by the end of 1912. The final estimated construction cost was US$ 13.5 million (equivalent to $ 416,000,000 in 2023), up from

31772-411: The tower. The roof was originally gilt but is now green. The pyramidal roof, as well as the smaller roofs below, used 40,000 square feet (3,700 m) of gold leaf. The main roof is interspersed with small dormers , which contain windows into the maintenance levels inside. The pyramidal roof is topped by another pyramid with an octagonal base and tall pointed-arch windows. In turn, the octagonal pyramid

31960-438: 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

32148-455: 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

32336-508: The world. On December 20, 1910, Woolworth sent a team of surveyors to measure the Metropolitan Life Tower's height and come up with a precise measurement, so he could make his skyscraper 50 feet (15 m) taller. He then ordered Gilbert to revise the building's design to reach 710 or 712 feet (216 or 217 m), despite ongoing worries over whether the additional height would be worth the increased cost. In order to fit

32524-515: 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,

32712-495: 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

32900-458: 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

33088-535: 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

33276-401: Was closed in 1982 because of concerns over crime. The area in front of the former entrances was used as a bike-storage area by the 2010s. A private pool, originally intended for F. W. Woolworth, exists in the basement. Proposed as early as 1910, the pool measured 15 by 55 feet (4.6 by 16.8 m) and had a marble perimeter. The pool was later drained but was restored in the mid-2010s as part of

33464-442: Was eventually raised to 792 feet (241 m). Several different height measurements have been cited over the years, but the building rises about 793.5 feet (241.9 m) above the lowest point of the site. The Woolworth Building was 60 stories tall when completed in 1913, though this consisted of 53 usable floors topped by several mechanical floors. The building's ceiling heights, ranging from 11 to 20 feet (3.4 to 6.1 m), make it

33652-545: 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

33840-427: 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

34028-454: Was initially intended to be used for safe-deposit boxes, though it was used by the Irving National Exchange Bank in practice. In 1931, Irving moved some $ 3 billion of deposits to a vault in its new headquarters at 1 Wall Street , and the Woolworth Building's vault was converted into a storage area for maintenance workers. There is also a basement storage room, known as the "bone yard", which contains replacement terracotta decorations for

34216-434: 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

34404-437: Was not decided upon until January 1911. Construction started in 1910 and was completed two years later. The building officially opened on April 24, 1913. The Woolworth Building has undergone several changes throughout its history. The facade was cleaned in 1932, and the building received an extensive renovation between 1977 and 1981. The Irving National Exchange Bank moved its headquarters to 1 Wall Street in 1931, but

34592-408: 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

34780-514: Was originally retained to design a standard 12- to 16-story commercial building for Woolworth, who later said he "had no desire to erect a monument that would cause posterity to remember me". By 1910, the plans called for a building with a 20-story base and 10-story upper section. Woolworth then wanted to surpass the nearby New York World Building , which sat on the other side of City Hall Park and stood 20 stories and 350 feet (110 m). A drawing by Thomas R. Johnson, dated April 22, 1910, shows

34968-410: 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

35156-459: 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

35344-426: Was used between the 1st and 28th floors, except in the interior columns, where triangular bracing was used. The portal braces on the building's exterior direct crosswinds downward toward the ground, rather than into the building. Interconnecting trusses were placed at five-floor intervals between the tower and the wings; these, as well as the side and court walls, provided the bracing for the wings. Directly above each of

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