Category Archives: Manhattan

Manhattan

Geometrics

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Geometrics is a gallery of New York architecture photos that I like for their strong lines and colors. Photos that are eye candy, more than documentary.

Click the Fullscreen link above the photos, and then the Play icon at the bottom, for a full screen slideshow. Press Esc to return to normal.

From time to time I’ll be adding to or changing this gallery, so if you’re a fan of geometry in architecture, please come back to visit.

In case you’re curious, the list below are the names and locations of buildings used in this gallery. Most are buildings that have their own individual galleries – click the links to explore.

Geometrics Buildings

Mondrian

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Le Mondrian – now Anglicized to The Mondrian – wears a colorful grid that lives up to its name despite the rounded corner. The tower is certainly among New York’s most colorful pieces of architecture.

The name came years after the glass-enclosed condo was finished, however. The 1992 structure was originally Le Palais – an unluckily timed condo that sat vacant for two years. New owners held a naming contest, and Le Mondrian was the winner. “Music Box” might be an equally appropriate name, for the way that balconies intersect the tower’s curved northeast corner.

But by any other name, this eye candy would look as sweet in a neighborhood known for its polished geometric icons: Lipstick Building, CitiGroup Center, and 599 Lexington Avenue are just down the block.

Mondrian Vital Statistics
  • Location: 250 E 54th Street at Second Avenue
  • Year completed: 1992
  • Architect: FXFOWLE, Architects
  • Floors: 43
  • Style: Postmodern
Mondrian Recommended Reading

Google Map

Whitehall Building

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Whitehall Building is actually two buildings: the original 1904 20-story structure facing Battery Place, and a 1910 32-story annex directly behind that, facing West Street.

(A third building, added to the complex in 1972, is not included in this gallery. Now named One Western Union International Plaza, that 20-story office building was built in a completely different style and is now under different ownership.)

Whitehall Building was a little bit of a gamble – its location was two blocks off Broadway, the most desirable address. But the park across the street guaranteed unimpeded views; with lower-than-Broadway rents, the building was an immediate success. The owners, Robert and William Chesebrough, started buying up adjacent lots for an annex even before the first building was completed. (Robert Chesebrough was the inventor of Vaseline Petroleum Jelly.)

Henry J. Hardenbergh was the architect for the Whitehall Building. Among his prior commissions were the Dakota Apartments (1884), the original Waldorf (1895) and Astoria (1897) hotels, and the Western Union Telegraph Building (1884). His design for the Whitehall was quite colorful for the times and the location, including five different shades of brick and stone in the Battery Place facade.

The records don’t say why Hardenbergh wasn’t selected to design the annex – but it may have been because he was busy designing the Plaza Hotel. In any case, Clinton & Russell was selected for the job. Their annex, Greater Whitehall, was much larger than Whitehall Building; in fact, it was the largest office building in New York at the time.

The upper floors (14-31) of both buildings have now been converted to rental apartments – Ocean Luxury Residences.

Whitehall Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 17 Battery Place
  • Year completed: 1904; 1910 (annex, aka Greater Whitehall)
  • Architect: Henry J. Hardenbergh; Clinton & Russell (annex)
  • Floors: 20; 31 (annex)
  • Style: neo-Renaissance
  • New York City Landmark: 2000
Whitehall Building Recommended Reading

Google Map

One Broadway

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One Broadway is a building within a building: Strip away the 1921 Neo-Classical white limestone skin and you’ll find a red brick and brownstone Queen Anne-style structure built in 1887.

(For a rare look at the “before,” take a look at Archiseek‘s article.)

Also beneath the facade, you’ll find layers of history – condensed here from the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission report:

The 1887 building, built on the site of a home reputedly used by General Washington, was named the Washington Building. It was built for Cyrus W. Field, whose Atlantic Telegraph Company laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable. The architect, Edward H. Kendall, also designed the Gorham Mfg. Building and the Methodist Book Concern.

J.P. Morgan’s International Mercantile Marine Company (IMMC) bought the building in 1919; Walter B. Chambers re-designed the structure inside and out. With competitor Cunard Line just a few doors up Broadway, the International Mercantile Marine Company Building became the anchor for “Steamship Row.” IMMC operated numerous subsidiaries, including Titanic‘s White Star Line. By 1940 internal mergers reduced the company to United States Lines, which took over the building from 1941 to 1979. Allstate Life Insurance Co. bought the building at a foreclosure sale in 1992 and financed a $2 million restoration in 1993-1994.

The building is now occupied by a branch of Citibank and Kenyon & Kenyon LLP – an intellectual property law firm.

One Broadway Vital Statistics
  • Location: One Broadway at Battery Place
  • Year completed: 1887; reclad, 1921
  • Architect: Edward Hale Kendall; Walter B. Chambers (remodeling)
  • Floors: 12
  • Style: Neo-Classical
  • New York City Landmark: 1995
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1991
One Broadway Recommended Reading

Google Map

Lefcourt Colonial Building

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Lefcourt Colonial Building was among the last buildings developed by Abraham Lefcourt, one of New York’s “rags to riches to rags” stories.

Now known as 295 Madison Avenue, the 45-story Neo-Gothic tower is an architectural landmark without the official title. The distinctive blue terra cotta medallions and gilded finials are visible from most of midtown. The street level retail space and lobby have been thoroughly modernized, but above that, the six-story base is richly decorated with terra cotta, false balustrades and layered brickwork.

Lefcourt Colonial was auctioned off in foreclosure just two years after it was completed, as the Great Depression demolished Abraham Lefcourt’s real estate and banking empire. And the day after the Lefcourt Colonial was sold – for $3.5 million – the Sevilla Towers faced the same fate. Sevilla Towers was the Lefcourt-built apartment hotel, completed but not yet opened, now known as the Essex House.

Lefcourt Colonial has something in common with the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and Statue of Liberty: You can buy a cast replica of the structure!

Lefcourt Colonial Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 295 Madison Avenue at E 41st Street
  • Year completed: 1930
  • Architect: Charles F. Moyer Co., Bark & Djorup
  • Floors: 45
  • Style: Neo-Gothic
Lefcourt Colonial Building Recommended Reading

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Socony-Mobil Building

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Socony-Mobil Building, aka 150 E 42nd Street, is another piece of New York City “love-it or hate-it” architecture. Landmarked in 2003 as an “impressive skyscraper” with “dramatic stainless steel arches,” it is also on some critics’ “ugliest buildings” list.

The original design, by John B. Peterkin, was a 30-story brick tower rising from a garden atop a three-story granite base. The developer, Galbreath Corporation, was unable to attract prime tenants, so in 1952 new architectural muscle was called in: Harrison & Abramovitz. Principals at that firm had worked with Galbreath on other projects and, incidentally, with the Rockefeller family during construction of New York icons Rockefeller Center and the United Nations.

The Harrison & Abramovitz-revised plan was for a 42-story tower with 13-story wings, clad in stainless steel. The firm was a pioneer in metal-clad architecture, earlier completing the Alcoa Building in Pittsburgh. Aluminum was considerably cheaper than stainless steel, but the steel industry agreed to match aluminum’s price for the opportunity to promote their product.

Why metal at all? Partly marketing – to give the building a modern identity. Partly structural – like glass, metal is lighter and thinner (leaves more rentable floor space) than masonry. Partly speed – metal panels go up faster than brick.

The 7,000 steel panels were embossed with four patterns (selected from more than 100): a rosette-like motif for above and below the windows; a large and small rosette to flank the windows, and two variants displaying a design of interlocking pyramids. These last panels are less wide and appear at the eighth floor where the ceiling is higher, or at the corners of the side elevations.

These controversial patterns were explained as necessary to stiffen the panels, diminish reflections, and create a self-cleaning surface (via wind and rain). The New Yorker‘s architecture critic, Lewis Mumford, called the design a “disaster” and said that the elevations looked as if they were “coming down with measles.”

The “self-cleaning” aspect wasn’t entirely accurate – the building was scrubbed with detergent in 1995.

The building’s four-story blue glass base, not nearly as controversial, is no less striking. The E 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue facades feature massive shallow eyebrow arches of stainless steel, resting on granite piers.

One wonders: Did the architects realize how well the Socony-Mobil Building frames the stainless steel spire of the Chrysler Building across the street? It’s a spectacular photo op!

Trivia: According to the building’s website, elevators to the top floors operate at 1,200 feet per minute, while elevators in the lowest floors operate at only 500 feet per minute.

Socony-Mobil Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 150 E 42nd Street between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue (full block though to E 41st Street)
  • Year completed: 1956
  • Architect: John B. Peterkin; Harrison & Abramovitz
  • Floors: 42
  • Style: Postmodern
  • New York City Landmark: 2003
Socony-Mobil Building Recommended Reading

Google Map

Croisic Building

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Croisic Building, aka 220 Fifth Avenue, is picturesque Gothic-styled architecture visible for blocks because of its two-story copper mansard roof. On closer inspection, the terra cotta gargoyles, eagles and other decoration are equally impressive.

The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership “Discover Flatiron” brochure claims that actress Ethel Barrymore resided at Croisic Building. That seems unlikely, because the building was always a commercial office building. However, some sources say the site was previously occupied by a Croisic apartment hotel, where she might have stayed (her Broadway debut was in 1895, before the current Croisic Building was erected). Other sources note that actor Richard Mansfield lived at the hotel.

Currently, Croisic Building seems to host a colony of architects – if you Google the address, the first pages are dominated by architect listings.

Trivia: According to New York Songlines, Croisic Building is across the street from the nonexistent 221 Fifth Avenue, home of Napoleon Solo, Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Croisic Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 220 Fifth Avenue at W 26th Street
  • Year completed: 1912
  • Architect: Frederick C. Browne
  • Floors: 22
  • Style: Neo-Gothic
  • New York City Landmark: 2001
Croisic Building Recommended Reading

Google Map

Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House

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Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House is one of New York City’s most important landmarks, both for its history and for its architecture.

Historically, this is the site of New York’s first Custom House; the first building burned down. The choice of architect was the first major use of the 1893 Tarnsey Act, which allowed private architects to design public buildings. Cass Gilbert won the commission, after heated (and controversial) competition. The United States Custom House also served as a test of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission: In 1965 the then-new agency was designating a federal building as a city landmark, and the regional administrator for the General Services Administration (GSA) argued that the city had no authority to regulate federal property. (Nonetheless, the city returned in 1979 to declare the interior as a landmark!)

The building was hugely important to the nation: Import duties charged here and at other ports financed the government, in the days before an income tax. The Customs Service moved to the World Trade Center in 1971. The building was empty for a decade, and slated for demolition until Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, NY) sponsored a bill to restore the Custom House. Additional legislation required the GSA to find new uses for unused federal buildings (they needed a law to figure that out?). Now, the building is shared by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the National Archives, and the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution).

You can’t tell it from these photos, but the Custom House is actually trapezoidal: The back of the building is wider than the front.

Cass Gilbert’s Beaux Arts design is filled with symbolism and references to classical architecture. The four monumental sculptures in front of the building, sculpted by Daniel Chester French, represent the continents Asia, Africa, America, and Europe. Statues representing 12 seafaring nations stand above the front facade’s columns; the Corinthian capitals of the columns include the head of Mercury (representing commerce); second-story windows are topped by heads representing the “eight races of mankind.”

How did Belgium wind up among the top 12 seafaring nations? According to “Secret New York, An Unusual Guide,” the statue was originally Germany, but ordered changed after the outbreak of World War I.

Interior details are equally rich (and also designated a New York City Landmark). New York artist Reginald Marsh painted the murals in the second floor rotunda, as part of a Treasury Relief Art Project (an offspring of the W.P.A.) in 1937.

(The GSA has an extensive photo gallery showing interior details.)

Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House Vital Statistics
  • Location: Bowling Green
  • Year completed: 1907
  • Architect: Cass Gilbert
  • Floors: 7
  • Style: Beaux Arts
  • New York City Landmark: 1965, 1979
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1972
Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House Recommended Reading

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De Lamar Mansion

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The De Lamar Mansion (Joseph Raphael De Lamar House), now the Polish Consulate General in New York, is a prime example of Beaux Arts architecture in New York.

C.P.H. Gilbert designed this for Joseph De Lamar, who struck it rich in the Colorado Gold Rush and wanted a home fit to enter New York’s high society. Besides towering over neighboring mansions (such as J.P. Morgan’s home across the street), the De Lamar mansion had the unheard-of luxury of an underground garage, served by electric hoist. [See Daytonian in Manhattan]

Joseph and his 10-year-old daughter Alice – he was divorced – lived in the palatial home with nine servants.

After Joseph died in 1918, Alice moved out and sold the mansion to the American Bible Society, which later sold it to the National Democratic Club. Much later (1973), the Republic of Poland bought the mansion to house its consulate.

De Lamar Mansion Vital Statistics
  • Location: 233 Madison Avenue at E 37th Street
  • Year completed: 1905
  • Architect: C.P.H. Gilbert
  • Floors: 5
  • Style: Beaux Arts
  • New York City Landmark: 1975
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1983
De Lamar Mansion Recommended Reading

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Park East Synagogue

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Park East Synagogue is an “especially imaginative” example of the Moorish Revival architecture popular for 19th century synagogues, in the words of New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.

“A detailed description of this complicated facade,” said the Commission, “cannot recreate the liveliness and imagination with which the elements are composed. A multitude of readings is possible and each element is used in an original and sometimes surprising context. Elements that have structural roles are used ornamentally and in conjunction with other elements in a unique manner, such as the frequent use of balusters in place of columns or piers in arcades. This inventiveness adds a playful, almost whimsical, note to the profusely ornamented facade which is reminiscent of the character, if not the detail, of Northern Renaissance architecture.”

The report notes that the towers were originally topped by bulbous domes (similar to Central Synagogue).

The building’s inventiveness fit the congregation, which founding Rabbi Bernard Drachman described as a “harmonious combination of Orthodox Judaism and Americanism.”

At the same time, the synagogue was a huge jump for the architects, Ernst Schneider and Henry Herter, whose main work had been tenements in the Lower East Side and Clinton.

Park East Synagogue Vital Statistics
  • Location: 163 E 67th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues
  • Year completed: 1890
  • Architect: Schneider & Herter
  • Floors: 6
  • Style: Moorish Revival
  • New York City Landmark: 1980
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1983
Park East Synagogue Recommended Reading

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