Tuesday, February 16, 2021 – When Trinity Church was the tallest building in the United States

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2021

The

288th  Edition

From Our Archives

SKYSCRAPERS

STEPHEN BLANK

WORLD BUILDING

Skyscrapers

Stephen Blank
“Skyscraper” had many meanings in the late 19th century, from top hats to the top-most sails on the great sailing ships. But by the 1880s, skyscraper referred specifically to tall buildings – and a decade later, to buildings 10 or more stories high.

Speaking of tall, until 1890, the highest edifice in NYC was Trinity Church at the top of Wall Street, constructed in 1846. Its spire rose 281 feet, making it not only the tallest building in NYC but also the tallest building in the United States. Folks, we are told, were able to climb to the top for dramatic views of the city, rivers and port. Trinity continued to dominate the New York City skyline until 1890, when the New York World Building topped out at 309 feet.

Speaking of views, I have heard that people were able to climb to the top of the Brooklyn Bridge towers – another early skyscraper, completed 1883 – to watch the great sailing ships pass below. Could this be true?

The first skyscrapers? There are many stories.

First, height or construction? But height, of course, depended on construction. Masonry (load bearing) walls would have to be very thick to support a building more than a few stories high. There would be no interior space on the lower floors. That’s why skyscrapers are identified with internal steel construction. (Note, this is not entirely true – the Monadnock Building in Chicago, one of the great early modern buildings there, had masonry walls.) The changing quality and price of steel in 1880s is behind all of this.

The key to taller buildings was steel frame-curtain wall construction – that is, the walls are hung like curtains from the steel frame. There were earlier steel frame constructed buildings in NYC. The Tower Building at 50 Broadway (by Cass Gilbert, 1889) was possibly the first steel-frame building in the City, though it reached only to 108 feet.

THE TOWER BUILDING

If steel frame-curtain wall construction is the key to skyscrapers, can we look back to NYC’s cast iron     front buildings as the early progenitors of the skyscrapers? The curtain wall construction permitted much more window area.

Steel frame construction wasn’t the only requirement for creating tall buildings. Elevators were also key. Through animal and steam driven lifts were used before, the first commercial passenger elevators were introduced by Otis in the Equitable Life Building in 1870 (considered by some to be the first skyscraper). Telephones, ventilation and – my favorite – plumbing were also necessary innovations. Taller buildings required a much greater understanding of stronger, deeper foundation construction and wind bracing. All of this had to come together to make the new skyscrapers possible.

What was the function of these new structures? Vertical space substituted for increasingly expensive horizontal space. Some of the new skyscrapers were prestige buildings – like Singer or Woolworth or the New York Times building – designed to show off the new powers in the economy. Another was purpose built office buildings. But all really served the same need – to provide office space for swarms of new businesses. This need responded to the emerging separation of functions in business. Underline the legal and financial changes that enabled builders to meet large up-front costs and rent to many tenants. The new prestige buildings housed many tenants, often smaller businesses. For companies with a large cash flow, building named, famous buildings and renting office space was good use for their money. Each new building lured tenants from older buildings, a churning which continued at least through the construction of the World Trade Towers.

Speaking of money, most of the new tall buildings provided commercial space on the ground floor. These shops were useful for tenants and also brought more rental income into the building. The one building that did not do this was the grand Telephone (AT&T) Building on Broadway, just south of St Paul’s. In the good old days when one could actually enter and look around, you’d see a magnificent, largely empty Egyptian style lobby with NO shops. The company was delighted to show you it didn’t need the income.

TELEPHONE BUILDING LOBBY

Chicago or New York? That’s hard to answer. Experts say that modern skyscraper construction began in NYC with the completion of the World Building (also known as the Pulitzer Building with the great gold dome, across Park Row from City Hall Park) in 1890. Burnham and Root’s 148 foot Rand McNally Building in Chicago, 1889, is said to have been the first all-steel framed skyscraper   The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, completed in 1885, was a 10-story building widely recognized as the first to use steel skeleton frame construction with reinforced concrete.

But regardless of who was first, styles were quite different. In contrast to New York’s typical “wedding cake” style, one floor piled on another, the Chicago Schools’ buildings seemed lighter, with more glass walls and a greater sense of verticality. Of course, building in Chicago was easier because so much of the city had been destroyed in the fire of 1871 and that the downtown area had been completely redesigned, eliminating the narrow, difficult passages of downtown NYC. 
 

CHICAGO STYLE, RELIANCE BUILDING

For sure, once New Yorkers figured out how to do it, the race for height went very rapidly. By 1900, fifteen skyscrapers in New York City exceeded 250 feet in height. Upward, from the World Building at 309 feet in 1890, to the Manhattan Life Insurance Building (348 feet, 1894), the Park Row Building (391 feet, 1899), the Singer Building (612 feet, 1908), the Metropolitan Life Tower (700 feet, 1909) and finally, the Woolworth Building (792 feet, 1913), New York skyscrapers soared higher and higher.

And soon created dark canyons on narrow New York streets. The Equitable Building at 120 Broadway was the last straw. It rose precipitately 38 stories (555 feet) from the sidewalk, and covered most of a block. This contributed to the adoption of the first modern building and zoning restrictions on vertical structures in Manhattan, the 1916 Zoning Resolution, which demanded set-backs at certain heights to ensure better access to light and air and gave NYC its iconic skyscraper image.

The decoration on many of these early New York skyscrapers was either a delight for the eyes or, in the view of the Chicago School, definitely old school. But the standard three-part model, lower level, middle and upper level, gave plenty of space for decoration. To see this clearly, look at Cass Gilbert’s first NYC building, the Broadway-Chambers Building, an 18-story office tower at 277 Broadway, completed in 1900. The tri-part design is clear and the decoration at the top is glorious – if you like that sort of thing.

SINGER BUILDING

Bear in mind, dear reader, that while this was going on downtown, the City was building enormously, everywhere: Penn Station, 1910; NY Public Library on 5th Ave, 1911; Grand Central Station, 1913. Bridges: Williamsburg, 1903; Manhattan and Queensboro, both 1909. And the subways were being built, too. (And steam shovels really worked with steam! No automatic tools.) Don’t forget that this was the great era for shipping in the New York Port – with all of the traffic and tumult that caused. And it is worthwhile saying, none of this was throw-away. Builders felt they were constructing for the ages and were delighted to put their names on their works. Thanks for coming along with me.

Stephen Blank
February 13, 2021 RIHA

BROADWAY CHAMBERS BUILDING

TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

Brick House is a 16-foot (4.9 m) tall bronze bust of a black woman by Simone Leigh, installed along New York City’s High Line in 2019
LAURA HUSSEY, VICKI FEINMEL, SUSAN RODESIS,GLORIA HERMAN, ALEXIS VELLEFANE, & V. HARWOOD
GOT IT!

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter  and Deborah Dorff

Judith Berdy
STEPHEN BLANK
WIKIPEDIA

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