Tag Archives: Bayard-Condict Building

NoHo - Bayard Condict Building

NoHo (Manhattan)

Collections, Manhattan, New York, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

NoHo – for NOrth of HOuston* Street (as contrasted with SoHo, SOuth of HOuston Street) is a landmarked, primarily residential upper-class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The district is wedged between Greenwich Village and the East Village. It is bounded by Broadway to the west and the Bowery to the east, and from East 9th Street in the north to East Houston Street in the south.

Through four separate designations (see below) in 1966, 1999, 2003, and 2008, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission has preserved almost the entire district. Modern glass towers have sprouted up at the fringes, and even within the district – before the LPC could act.

* Attention, visitors: New Yorkers pronounce this as HOW-ston Street.

NoHo Recommended Reading
NoHo Buildings Pictured
Building / Address Year Architect
10 Astor Place aka 444 Lafayette Street 1876 Griffith Thomas
640 Broadway 1897 DeLemos & Cordes
700 Broadway 1891 George B. Post
Astor Place, 445 Lafayette Street 2005 Gwathmey, Siegel & Associates
Bayard-Condict Building, 65 Bleecker Street 1899 Louis H. Sullivan and Lyndon P. Smith
Bleecker Tower, 644 Broadway 1891 Decatur Hatch
Engine Company 33, 42 Great Jones Street 1898 Ernest Flagg, W.B. Chambers
Schermerhorn Building, 380 Lafayette Street 1888 Henry Janeway Hardenbergh

Google Map

Bayard-Condict Building

Manhattan, , , , , , , ,

Bayard-Condict Building is New York’s only sample of the Chicago School architecture of Louis H. Sullivan. The 12-story steel-framed, terra-cotta-clad office building was considered a skyscraper when it was completed in 1899. It still glows a warm white at the T intersection of Bleecker and Crosby Streets, thanks to painstaking restoration in 1996.

The six-year, $800,000 project repaired almost 1300 terra cotta tiles; only 30 had to be replaced. In addition, restoration architects Wank Adams Slaving Associates located one of the elaborate original store front column capitals that had been ripped out during an early renovation – and made copies to restore the ground floor to its original design.

Louis Sullivan’s architectural innovation was to abandon the custom of designing and ornamenting buildings in the styles of the past – Beaux Arts, Classical Revival, Romanesque, etc. Instead, he created forms that accentuated a building’s height and structure – thin steel beams instead of massive masonry columns. Decoration, too, was modernized and Americanized.

(It should be noted that the six angels crowning the Bayard-Condict Building were not Sullivan’s idea. They were ordered by Silas Alden Condict.)

The building’s financial form was not as well designed as its facade. New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission notes that though the structure’s original name was to be Bayard Building, none of the prominent Bayard family was financially involved. The point became moot when construction delays resulted in a recall of the mortgage: New owners Emmeline and Silas Condict changed the name to Condict Building. A scant five months after the tower’s completion, the Condicts sold it to Charles T. Wills, the builder – who revived the Bayard name.

Bayard-Condict Building Vital Statistics
  • Location: 65 Bleecker Street at Crosby Street
  • Year completed: 1899
  • Architect: Louis H. Sullivan and Lyndon P. Smith
  • Floors: 12
  • Style: Chicago School
  • New York City Landmark: 1975
  • National Register of Historic Places: 1976
Bayard-Condict Building Recommended Reading

Google Map