Consolidated Edison Building (New York City, New York)

 office building, Neoclassical (architecture), 1928_construction

515-foot, 26-story Beaux-Arts/Neo-Classical office building completed in 1928. Designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh and Warren & Wetmore for the Consolidated Gas Company, the building was constructed in stages, with the earliest on East 15th Street and the northern end of the block front on Irving Place, built in two phases between 1910 and 1914.

Between 1926 and 1929, Warren & Wetmore designed two more additions on Irving Place and East Fourteenth Street, wrapping 18-story office wings, which matched the Hardenbergh-designed portions of the building, around a signature 26-story corner tower. This monumental limestone-clad tower has a 3-story colonnaded base and a setback tower featuring illuminated clocks by Seth Thomas Co., a bell chamber treated as colonnaded temple modeled on the Hellenistic Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, a bell-capped roof framed by corner obelisks, and a gigantic bronze-and-glass lantern.

The three major facades and tower are clad in limestone, which has been painted. The brick eastern elevation, facing the parking lot and Third Avenue, has been painted and is patched in places with stucco. Except for the tower, the designed facades are articulated into 3-7-2-1-4-1 story groupings, defined by projecting cornices and in some cases by continuous pilasters. The bay articulation varies on each façade, with the windows grouped into single and triple bays. The tower has a 3-story colonnaded base, sets back to a 21-story mid-section, and is crowned by a campanile, comprised of a podium with clock faces, columned bell chamber, bell-shaped roof, and bronze-and-glass lantern. The building retains most of its original storefront infill including cast-iron grilles, window sills, slender metal mullions and transom bars, decorative cast-iron spandrel panels, copper-clad wood window surrounds, historic bronze-and-glass doors, and the original metal canopy decorated with torches, lamps, and urns at the tower entrance on Irving Place. There are two additional entrances (dating from the mid-1950s) on East 15th Street and three entrances on East 14th.

The upper stories of the 15th Street façade and the north side of the Irving Place façade, constructed 1910-14, retain their original copper-clad wood frames and one-over-one copper-clad wood-sash windows. The upper stories on Irving Place and East 14th Street of the 1920s addition retain their original one-over-one copper windows. Setback penthouses extend along all three of the designed facades and are highly visible from Third Avenue. Balustraded parapets at the edge of the roofline on the designed facades partially screen the penthouses from view. The tower retains its iconic form and continues to be illuminated; however, modern fiber optic cables have replaced the original lighting.

The facade is arranged into seven alternating wide (triple-window-wide) and narrow (single-window-wide) bays. Although this facade has a unified design, the five northern bays are part of the original Hardenbergh 1910-14 building while the southern two bays are part of the Warren & Wetmore 1926-29 addition. This is reflected in the off-center placement of the entrance portico and the projection of the first and fifth bays, which read as framing pavilions in the original Hardenbergh design.

Above a granite water table, the 3-story base is clad in smooth-faced chamfered rusticated limestone blocks. The 1st and 2nd floors are articulated with giant segmental-arches containing metal-and-glass storefronts in bays 1, 5, and 7 (reading north to south). Beaux-Arts style stone escutcheons ornament the wide piers between the arches. A recessed entrance portico with giant Doric pilasters, giant Ionic columns set in antis, and an Ionic entablature spans bays 2-4. Narrower, bay 6 is a single double-height square-headed opening with a cast-iron spandrel separating the first and second story windows. At the 3rd floor, the trabeated window openings are arranged in a 2-1-3-1-2-1-2 pattern with wide piers decorated with square panels defining the bays. The storefronts at the first story have metal bulkheads that incorporate decorative grilles and are enriched with dentils and bosses. The historic show windows are divided by slender metal mullions into wide center lights and narrower sidelights with similarly arranged multi-light transoms above. The metal spandrel panels between the ground-floor and 2nd-floor windows are enriched with tablets and garlands. The historic 2nd-floor windows also have a tripartite arrangement and retain their original transoms but are framed by heavier metal mullions and transom bars. The 3rd-floor
windows retain their original copper-covered one-over-one sashes.

Above the entablature that crowns the 3rd-floor is a 7-story section with limestone cladding laid in rusticated bands. The three-window-wide bays are set off by curved reveals. The recessed stone spandrel panels beneath the windows are ornamented with geometric designs and rosettes. Above the cornice that caps the 7-story section, is a two-story grouping with recessed windows set off by slender giant Ionic colonettes and spandrel panels embellished with cartouches. At the 13th floor the wide piers are embellished with square panels outlined by garlands and enriched by central rosettes. The deeply recessed windows are separated by stone mullions. The 13th floor is crowned by a simple cornice. The 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th floors are grouped together with giant stylized pilasters decorating the piers. Here the recessed windows are framed by a decorative armature of cast-iron mullions and spandrel panels and volutes. The 18th floor features paired console brackets at the piers. These support the projecting console cornice, capped by balustraded parapets.

Near the Irving Place façade, the penthouse, which extends over the northern [Hardenbergh] wing, is one-and-one-half stories high and has a low gabled roof. The southern four window bays retain their original form. The northern half of the façade has been reconfigured with two large openings each containing three windows or doors. Above a simple belt course, the gabled attic portion of façade is articulated with a paneled frieze.

The tower’s 3-story base has six fluted limestone Doric columns resting on granite plinths and a limestone Doric entablature featuring sculptural panels in place of triglyphs. These are embellished with classical emblems relating to light, power, and commerce. Between the columns is the original bronze-and-glass wall/screen, which is fitted up for storefronts and is richly decorated with raised panels, rosettes, and delicate classical friezes decorated with light-related emblems including suns, lamps, candelabra, lightning rods, and torches. The 21-story setback midsection of tower is adorned at the corners with rusticated bands terminating at the 24th floor in moldings based on stylized Doric entablatures. On the rusticated corner bays the windows are slightly recessed. In the six center bays the windows are grouped into pairs separates by wide piers. At the base of the campanile there is a single transitional story with square-
headed windows. This floor serves as the base for podium with beveled corners, which curve around ornamental stone tripods supporting flaming stone urns. Each side of the podium has a clock face measuring 21 feet, 9 inches in diameter. The perimeter of the clocks is bordered by stone egg-and-dart moldings. Large metal Arabic numerals are attached to the stone face of the clock.

Atop the clock is the bell chamber recessed behind a colonnade of four giant Ionic columns. The bell chamber wall is pierced by two tiers of windows. These retain their original bronze grilles based on Greek prototypes. casion continues to be illuminated at night. The limestone-clad bell-shaped roof above the belfry is set off by stone obelisks resting on pedestals. This roof is capped by a bronze-and-glass lantern, richly embellished with cresting and scrolled brackets. The lantern was originally and often continues to be illuminated at night.

The headquarters of the major utility company for New York City, Consolidated Edison and its predecessors, the Consolidated Gas Company of New York and New York Edison, have continuously been here since the building’s construction. Some of the ground-level retail tenants include Apple Bank for Savings and Raymour & Flanigan furniture.

www.coned.com/en/about-us/company-information
www.preserve2.org/gramercy/proposes/land/marks/4irv.htm
hdc.org/buildings/consolidated-edison-company-building/
hdl.handle.net/2027/pst.000065812433?urlappend=%3Bseq=5...
www1.nyc.gov/assets/lpc/downloads/pdf/presentation-mate...
www.villagepreservation.org/2013/07/17/a-tower-of-light...
archive.org/details/towerclocks00seth/page/36/mode/1up