Woolworth Building
Encyclopedia
The Woolworth Building is one of the oldest skyscraper
s in New York City
. More than a century after the start of its construction, it remains, at 57 stories, one of the fifty tallest buildings in the United States as well as one of the twenty tallest buildings in New York City. Since 1966 it has been a National Historic Landmark
, and a New York City landmark since 1983.
by architect Cass Gilbert
, who was commissioned by Frank Woolworth
in 1910 to design the tallest building in the world as the Woolworth Company's new corporate headquarters on Broadway
, between Park Place and Barclay Street in Lower Manhattan
, opposite City Hall
. Originally planned to be 625 feet (190.5 m) high, the building was eventually elevated to 792 feet (241.4 m). The construction cost was and Woolworth paid all of it in cash. On completion, the Woolworth building overtook the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower
as the world's tallest building; it opened on April 24, 1913.
With a resemblance to European Gothic
cathedral
s, the structure was labeled the Cathedral of Commerce by the Reverend S. Parkes Cadman
during the opening ceremony,, although it maligned by others due to its eclecticism. It remained the tallest building in the world until the construction of 40 Wall Street
and the Chrysler Building
in 1930; an observation deck on the 57th floor attracted visitors until 1945.
The building's tower, flush with the main frontage on Broadway, is raised on a block base with a narrow interior court for light. The exterior decoration was cast in limestone-colored, glazed architectural terra-cotta
panels. Strongly articulated piers
, carried—without interrupting cornices—right to the pyramidal cap, give the building its upward thrust. The Gothic detailing concentrated at the highly visible top is massively scaled, able to be read from the street level several hundred feet below.
Engineers Gunvald Aus
and Kort Berle designed the steel frame, supported on massive caisson
s that penetrate to the bedrock. The high-speed elevators were innovative, and the building's high office-to-elevator ratio made the structure profitable.
The ornate, cruciform lobby, is "one of the most spectacular of the early 20th century in New York City". It is covered in Skyros
veined marble, has a vaulted
ceiling, mosaics, a stained-glass skylight and bronze furnishings. On the balconies of the mezzanine are the murals Labor and Commerce overlooking sculpted plaster caricatures that include Gilbert with a model of the building, Aus taking a girder's measurments, and Woolworth counting nickels. Woolworth's private office, revetted
in marble in French Empire style
, has been preserved.
The building's facade was restored between 1977 and 1981 by the Ehrenkrantz Group, in which much of the terra-cotta was replaced with cast stone.
bank and Columbia Records
. Columbia Records had moved into the building in 1913 and housed a recording studio
in it. In 1917, Columbia made a recording of a dixieland
band, the Original Dixieland Jass Band
in this studio.
) sold it to the Witkoff Group for $155 million. Until recently, that company kept a presence in the building through a Foot Locker
store (Foot Locker is the successor to the Woolworth Company).
Prior to its 2001 destruction, the World Trade Center
was often photographed in such a way that the Woolworth Building could be seen between 1 and 2 World Trade Center. After the September 11, 2001 attacks
a few blocks away, the building was without electricity, water and telephone service for a few weeks and had broken windows and the top turret was damaged by falling rubble. Increased post-attack security restricted access to most of the ornate lobby, previously a tourist attraction.
The structure has a long association with higher education
, housing a number of Fordham University
schools in the early 20th century. Today, the building houses, among other tenants, TTA Inc., Control Group Inc. and the New York University
School of Continuing and Professional Studies' Center for Global Affairs.
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
s in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. More than a century after the start of its construction, it remains, at 57 stories, one of the fifty tallest buildings in the United States as well as one of the twenty tallest buildings in New York City. Since 1966 it has been a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
, and a New York City landmark since 1983.
Architecture
The Woolworth Building was constructed in neo-Gothic styleGothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
by architect Cass Gilbert
Cass Gilbert
- Historical impact :Gilbert is considered a skyscraper pioneer; when designing the Woolworth Building he moved into unproven ground — though he certainly was aware of the ground-breaking work done by Chicago architects on skyscrapers and once discussed merging firms with the legendary Daniel...
, who was commissioned by Frank Woolworth
Frank Woolworth
Frank Winfield Woolworth was the founder of F.W. Woolworth Company , an operator of discount stores that priced merchandise at five and ten cents...
in 1910 to design the tallest building in the world as the Woolworth Company's new corporate headquarters on Broadway
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
, between Park Place and Barclay Street in Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
, opposite City Hall
New York City Hall
New York City Hall is located at the center of City Hall Park in the Civic Center area of Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA, between Broadway, Park Row, and Chambers Street. The building is the oldest City Hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions, such as...
. Originally planned to be 625 feet (190.5 m) high, the building was eventually elevated to 792 feet (241.4 m). The construction cost was and Woolworth paid all of it in cash. On completion, the Woolworth building overtook the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, also known as the Metropolitan Life Tower or Met Life Tower, is a landmark skyscraper located on East 23rd Street between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue South, off of Madison Square Park. in the borough of Manhattan in New York City...
as the world's tallest building; it opened on April 24, 1913.
With a resemblance to European Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
cathedral
Cathedral
A cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop...
s, the structure was labeled the Cathedral of Commerce by the Reverend S. Parkes Cadman
S. Parkes Cadman
Samuel Parkes Cadman , better known as S. Parkes Cadman, was an American clergyman, newspaper writer, and pioneer Christian radio broadcaster of the 1920s and 1930s. He was an early advocate of ecumenism and an outspoken opponent of anti-Semitism and racial intolerance...
during the opening ceremony,, although it maligned by others due to its eclecticism. It remained the tallest building in the world until the construction of 40 Wall Street
40 Wall Street
40 Wall Street is a 70-story skyscraper in New York City. Originally known as the Bank of Manhattan Trust building, and also known as Manhattan Company Building, it was later known by its street address when its founding tenant merged to form the Chase Manhattan Bank and today is known as the...
and the Chrysler Building
Chrysler Building
The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco style skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan in the Turtle Bay area at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Standing at , it was the world's tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State...
in 1930; an observation deck on the 57th floor attracted visitors until 1945.
The building's tower, flush with the main frontage on Broadway, is raised on a block base with a narrow interior court for light. The exterior decoration was cast in limestone-colored, glazed architectural terra-cotta
Glazed architectural terra-cotta
Glazed architectural terra-cotta is a ceramic masonry building material popular in the United States from the late 19th century until the 1930s, and still one of the most common building materials found in U.S. urban environments...
panels. Strongly articulated piers
Pier (architecture)
In architecture, a pier is an upright support for a superstructure, such as an arch or bridge. Sections of wall between openings function as piers. The simplest cross section of the pier is square, or rectangular, although other shapes are also common, such as the richly articulated piers of Donato...
, carried—without interrupting cornices—right to the pyramidal cap, give the building its upward thrust. The Gothic detailing concentrated at the highly visible top is massively scaled, able to be read from the street level several hundred feet below.
Engineers Gunvald Aus
Gunvald Aus
Gunvald Aus, also written Aas was a Norwegian-American engineer. He is most associated with the engineering of the Woolworth Building in New York City....
and Kort Berle designed the steel frame, supported on massive caisson
Caisson (engineering)
In geotechnical engineering, a caisson is a retaining, watertight structure used, for example, to work on the foundations of a bridge pier, for the construction of a concrete dam, or for the repair of ships. These are constructed such that the water can be pumped out, keeping the working...
s that penetrate to the bedrock. The high-speed elevators were innovative, and the building's high office-to-elevator ratio made the structure profitable.
The ornate, cruciform lobby, is "one of the most spectacular of the early 20th century in New York City". It is covered in Skyros
Skyros
Skyros is an island in Greece, the southernmost of the Sporades, an archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Around the 2nd millennium BC and slightly later, the island was known as The Island of the Magnetes where the Magnetes used to live and later Pelasgia and Dolopia and later Skyros...
veined marble, has a vaulted
Vault (architecture)
A Vault is an architectural term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert lateral thrust that require a counter resistance. When vaults are built underground, the ground gives all the resistance required...
ceiling, mosaics, a stained-glass skylight and bronze furnishings. On the balconies of the mezzanine are the murals Labor and Commerce overlooking sculpted plaster caricatures that include Gilbert with a model of the building, Aus taking a girder's measurments, and Woolworth counting nickels. Woolworth's private office, revetted
Revetment
Revetments, or revêtements , have a variety of meanings in architecture, engineering and art history. In stream restoration, river engineering or coastal management, they are sloping structures placed on banks or cliffs in such a way as to absorb the energy of incoming water...
in marble in French Empire style
Empire (style)
The Empire style, , sometimes considered the second phase of Neoclassicism, is an early-19th-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts followed in Europe and America until around 1830, although in the U. S. it continued in popularity in...
, has been preserved.
The building's facade was restored between 1977 and 1981 by the Ehrenkrantz Group, in which much of the terra-cotta was replaced with cast stone.
Tenants
At the completion of the building, the Woolworth Company occupied only one and a half floors of the building, but, as the owner, profited from renting space out to others, including the Irving TrustIrving Trust
Irving Trust was a bank headquartered in New York City, and the principal subsidiary of the Irving Bank Corporation. Between 1913 and 1931, its headquarters was in the Woolworth Building; after 1931, until it was acquired by Bank of New York, its headquarters was located at One Wall Street, at...
bank and Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. Columbia Records had moved into the building in 1913 and housed a recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
in it. In 1917, Columbia made a recording of a dixieland
Dixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
band, the Original Dixieland Jass Band
Original Dixieland Jass Band
The Original Dixieland Jass Band were a New Orleans, Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their "Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz single ever issued. The group composed and made the first recordings of many jazz standards, the most famous being Tiger Rag...
in this studio.
Recent history
The building was owned by the Woolworth company for 85 years until 1998, when the Venator Group (formerly the F. W. Woolworth CompanyF. W. Woolworth Company
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first successful Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store"...
) sold it to the Witkoff Group for $155 million. Until recently, that company kept a presence in the building through a Foot Locker
Foot Locker
Foot Locker, Inc. is an American sportswear and footwear retailer, with its headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, and operating in approximately 20 countries worldwide. Formerly known as Venator Group, Inc., it is the successor corporation to the F.W. Woolworth Company , and many of...
store (Foot Locker is the successor to the Woolworth Company).
Prior to its 2001 destruction, the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
was often photographed in such a way that the Woolworth Building could be seen between 1 and 2 World Trade Center. After the September 11, 2001 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
a few blocks away, the building was without electricity, water and telephone service for a few weeks and had broken windows and the top turret was damaged by falling rubble. Increased post-attack security restricted access to most of the ornate lobby, previously a tourist attraction.
The structure has a long association with higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
, housing a number of Fordham University
Fordham University
Fordham University is a private, nonprofit, coeducational research university in the United States, with three campuses in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St...
schools in the early 20th century. Today, the building houses, among other tenants, TTA Inc., Control Group Inc. and the New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
School of Continuing and Professional Studies' Center for Global Affairs.
In popular culture
- The Woolworth Building has made some notable appearances in film. In the DisneyWalt Disney PicturesWalt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
film Enchanted, Narissa the dragonDragonA dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
carries Robert up to the top of it. After killing the dragon, Robert and Giselle slide down. It is also featured in the 1979 film Kramer vs. KramerKramer vs. KramerKramer vs. Kramer is a 1979 American drama film adapted by Robert Benton from the novel by Avery Corman, and directed by Benton. The film tells the story of a married couple's divorce and its impact on everyone involved, including the couple's young son...
, in which Billy asks his father (played by Dustin HoffmanDustin HoffmanDustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
) its name. In the film CloverfieldCloverfieldCloverfield is a 2008 American disaster-monster film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams and written by Drew Goddard.The film follows six young New Yorkers attending a going-away party on the night that a gigantic monster attacks the city...
, it collapses after the monster critically damages it. The building is also mentioned near the beginning of 12 Angry Men, and appears as the headquarters of Mode magazine in Ugly BettyUgly BettyUgly Betty is an American comedy-drama television series developed by Silvio Horta, which premiered on ABC on September 28, 2006, and ended on April 14, 2010. The series revolves around the character Betty Suarez and is based on Fernando Gaitán's Colombian telenovela soap opera Yo soy Betty, la fea...
.
- In the novel Peak, the protagonist is arrested for climbing the Woolworth Building.
- The Lincoln American TowerLincoln American TowerThe Lincoln American Tower is a 22 story building located at the corner of North Main and Court streets in Memphis, Tennessee. It is also a historical landmark, one of the first steel frame skyscrapers built in Memphis...
in Memphis, TennesseeMemphis, TennesseeMemphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, built in 1924, is a small replica of the Woolworth Building, standing at one-third its height.
See also
- Classic Woolworth's Store in Wilmington, DelawareWilmington, DelawareWilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
External links
- "Designation List 164: The Woolworth Building", New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, April 12, 1983
- "Pride and Humility in the Woolworth Building and in Ourselves" by John Stern, from beautyofnyc.org
- The Woolworth Building from GreatBuildings.com
- Medieval New York website from Fordham UniversityFordham UniversityFordham University is a private, nonprofit, coeducational research university in the United States, with three campuses in and around New York City. It was founded by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York in 1841 as St...
, with construction details and photo images of the Woolworth Building - The Woolworth Building from NYC-Architecture.com