Woolworth Building (New York City, New York)

 office building, skyscraper, condominiums, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, Gothic revival (architecture), movie / film / TV location, historic landmark, 1913_construction

792-foot, 57-story Neo-Gothic office building completed in 1913. Designed by Cass Gilbert for Frank W. Woolworth, the founder of Woolworth's five-and-dime stores. Originally planned to be 420 feet high, it then rose to 792 feet to become the tallest building in the world at the time; construction cost $13,500,000, which Woolworth paid in cash. More than 100 years after it opened on April 24, 1913, it is still one of the fifty tallest buildings in the United States. Given its resemblance to European Gothic cathedrals, the structure was called "The Cathedral of Commerce" by the Reverend S. Parkes Cadman. It remained the tallest building in the world until the construction of 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building, also in New York City, in 1930. The building is a National Historic Landmark, having been listed in 1966.

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 massive 29-story base of the building is U-shaped, with a narrow light court at the west end, and the tower portion rising up above the east end. The main entrance on Broadway is recessed beneath a grand arch; the 2nd and 3rd floors are rife with incredibly detailed ornament. The straight lines of the piers end in the tower decorated with gargoyles, turrents, pinnacles. The tower is capped by a high-pitched copper roof, now a green patina, crowned with tracery and gargoyles.

The Woolworth has a Romanesque lobby with barrel-vaulted ceilings, marble, mosaics by Heinigke & Bowen, and bronze fittings by Winslow Bros. and Tiffany Studios. Also located in the lobby are sculpted caricatures of Frank Woolworth, Cass Gilbert and Louis Horowitz, the builder. The building's facade was restored between 1977 and 1981 by the Ehrenkrantz Group, during which much of the terra-cotta was replaced with concrete.

Despite its name, Woolworth isn't located in the building anymore: they sold the building in 1998 and left completely in 1999 (when the company was named Venator Group). The central tower, the top 30 stories, are currently being rebuilt as luxury apartments. The exterior was used outside of the 2 Park Place entrance for S3E1 of the HBO original series "Succession" and was also "destroyed" in the movie "Cloverfield".

thewoolworthtower.com/
babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015007001301&view=...
www.in-arch.net/NYC/nyc1a.html#7
www.beyondthegildedage.com/2012/03/woolworth-building.h...
skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=832
hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015036009465?urlappend=%3Bseq...
archive.org/details/architecturalrec3319unse/page/109/m...