One Trinity Centre (New York City, New York)

 office building, place with historical importance, Neo-Gothic (architecture), 1905_construction

282-foot, 21-story Neo-Gothic office building completed in 1905. Designed by Francis Hatch Kimball, it is the earlier of the "Thames Twins" straddling Thames St. - the very similar U.S. Realty Building was completed in 1907. A bridge connecting the two buildings at the roof level was added in 1912, also designed by Kimball. Both were renovated in 1988-1989 by Swanke Hayden Connell.

These are richly detailed buildings with "broken Gothic forms." Both buildings were designed with Gothic detail to harmonize with neighboring Trinity Church. One Trinity Centre, originally just called the Trinity Building, and replacing an earlier 1853 Trinity Building by Richard Upjohn, it has a broad southern elevation that faces onto Trinity Church and Cemetery, making it one of the most visible office buildings downtown; its much less visible northern elevation, facing onto narrow Thames Street, is much plainer in design.

The construction of these enormous slabs was a major undertaking, entailing the relocation of Thames Street 28 feet to the north and the construction of caissons 85 feet into the marshy subsoil. The Indiana limestone-faced buildings are carefully detailed with towers, gables, and fanciful carved ornament. At the base of One Trinity Centre is a shallow water table of pink granite. On the north side, a basement of unpolished granite increases in height as the site slopes downward 11 feet between Broadway and Trinity Place. The southern elevation is on grade with the elevated churchyard.

A domed, copper cupola on an elaborate, polygonal base ornamented with projecting gargoyles and finials tops the northern end of the Broadway facade, where it forms a 3-sided, angled corner on Broadway and Thames Street. The main, Broadway facade features a recessed, basket-arched entrance portal with a small set of steps. The grand portal has pointed, engaged buttresses ornamented with eagles and winged dragons at either side, and a dentiled cornice crowned by a framed shield containing stars and stripes within a stepped pediment. The cornice continues around the building as a molded stringcourse, similar to those marking the 5th, 8th, 14th & 18th floors.

Flanking the entrance are pointed-arched niches, and large, basket-arched windows. The transoms of these windows have bronze tracery and stained glass, and the transom of the portal has a decorative bronze grille supported on winged dragon brackets. The windows to the south of the doorway is also flanked by buttresses, and surmounted by a Gothic balustrade. Below this bay is an entrance to the subway, which is original. Several windows in the angled corner are fronted with balustrades on various floors, other have dentilled sills.

Above the ground floor, the Broadway facade has a 3-story, gabled bay centered above the south window and entrance. It has three rectangular windows, continued above a stone balustrade by double-height, pointed-arch windows. Bundled piers topped with engaged, Gothic finials outline the bays and give an undulating effect to the wall surface. This major bay is identical to bays on the southern and northern elevations, which together articulate the base of the building.

The 13-story shaft, on all three major elevations, is punctuated by bays of paired rectangular windows with simple sills. Alternating bays have Gothic details: inscribed arches with decorative shields at the 6th floor, balustrades at the 8th floor, blind tracery at the 9th floor, and pointed gables at the 15th floor. The shaft is terminated by a row of Gothic brackets supporting a dentiled cornice with gargoyles at the corners.

The upper floors feature an arcade of double-height, basket-arched windows containing bronze infill panels and tracery in the transoms, alternating with pointed, engaged buttresses. End bays, continuing the gabled bays of the base, have triple-height Gothic windows framed with fretwork and are surmounted by high, stepped parapets with ribbed panels with form tower-like terminations to the roof line, matched by those on the Broadway and Trinity Place facades.

The Trinity Place facade, though much narrower than the southern elevation, has the same general bay articulation, with two major bays rising from base to crown. The entrance is much less elaborate than that of the primary facade, consisting of a simple, rectangular opening in the granite base. The Thames Street elevation is comparatively unarticulated, apart from the 1-bay returns from the Broadway and Trinity Place ends.

In 1912 a small footbridge was erected across Thames Street, approximately midway between Broadway and Trinity Place, joining the roofs of the Trinity and U.S. Realty Buildings. Designed by Kimball, the bridge has steel framing and ornamental wrought-iron panels with a quatrefoil pattern. One Trinity Centre has been in continuous office use since its completion. The ground floor is occupied by Jos. A Bank menswear.