ConEdison IRT Powerhouse

 power plant, interesting place, historic landmark

Renaissance-revival powerhouse building completed in 1904. Designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White with staff engineers of the Rapid Transit Subway Construction Co., it fills the entire block. It was built to provide electricity to the original IRT subway, and still bears the "Interbrough Rapid Transit" name on the 11th Avenue side. In 1940, the city’s Board of Transportation took over the IRT’s operations, and in 1959, the building was acquired by the Consolidated Edison Company. Electricity is still generated here, now belonging to Con Edison where it serves as a co-generation plant.

The building originally had six smokestacks, designed to echo the smokestacks on the great steamships at the nearby Hudson River piers. As the powerhouse neared completion in 1904, it constituted the largest building operation underway in the entire city. Capable of producing 100,000 horsepower and holding more than 30 million pounds of coal, it was both massive and intricate, with coal delivery and ash removal largely automated through a system of conveyors and hopper cars. A railroad spur integrated into the design enabled freight trains to enter the building through large portals at its eastern end.

The powerhouse is clad in granite (at the basement level), buff Roman brick, and creamy terra-cotta, with classical ornament incorporating French Neoclassical and Neo-Grec influences. It extends for approximately 694 feet along West 58th & 59th Streets. The building consists of two main sections, each running east to west along the building’s entire length. The southern section was originally the boiler house containing coal hoppers and boilers, and the northern section was the "operating room" containing the engines and generating equipment. Although the building appears from surrounding streets to have a single large roof, it has separate pitched roofs with clerestories—set back from the facade, with a valley in between— over each of the two sections. The building site slopes downward from Eleventh Avenue toward the Hudson River, making the basement that is below grade at the building’s eastern end exposed at grade on the western end of the building. At its western end, the IRT Powerhouse adjoins a circa 1949-51 generating station. Although the three facades are similar, they are not identical. All share such features as large round-arch-headed window openings with tripartite archivolts and console keystones; bays defined by pilasters; square-headed attic openings within elaborate surrounds; and a profusion of classical ornament. On all three facades, continuous classical friezes separate the lower portions from the attic and the attic from the parapet.

Despite their similarities, the east (Eleventh Avenue) facade is both the shortest and most elaborately decorated. It consists of eight bays, with the central six bays grouped within a projecting pavilion. Each of the six bays is defined by single pilasters composed of brick and terra-cotta blocks ornamented with palmettes. The building’s historic entrance is in the northernmost bay, within a hooded classical surround. As on the West 58th and 59th Street facades, the frieze above the attic originally supported a deep cornice that crowned all three facades, but has been removed. At the top of this facade is a stepped parapet containing two terra-cotta diamonds and a terra-cotta plaque announcing the name of the IRT Company.

The south (West 58th Street) and north (West 59th Street) facades are nearly identical. Each contains 19 bays. The main differences between them are that the south facade has basement openings grouped in threes, which the north facade lacks, and the round-arch windows of south façade windows have solid transom panels, while those on the north have glazed transoms. These facades are similar to the Eleventh Avenue facade, although their ornament is simpler. They lack the decorative pilaster blocks of the Eleventh Avenue facade and the pilasters separating their bays are paired rather than single.

Each facade has a portal at its eastern end, which originally allowed freight trains to enter the building from Eleventh Avenue. All of the bays contain round-arch-headed window openings except for the two outermost, which are similar in design to the two outermost bays of the Eleventh Avenue facade.The roof was originally covered with terra-cotta tile. The building had five smokestacks at the time of its opening, with a sixth added early in its history. The existing smokestack at the building’s eastern end was constructed in the late 1960s and is much taller than the original stacks. It does not share its location with any of the original smokestacks. Most of the large round-arch-headed window openings on the three facades retain their historic window frames. These historic frames are tripartite, with classical decoration on their mullions, molded transom bars, and, on the Eleventh Avenue and West 59th Street facades, tripartite half-round transoms.

On the eastern facade there are cartouches within the pilaster capitals, each containing a pinecone cradled by two downward-pointing wings, surrounded by lightning bolts. The round-arched first-story window openings have gauged-brick arches, tripartite archivolts with guilloche and foliate motifs, console keystones with eagles, garlanded wreaths with cartouches above the keystones, and tripartite window frames with classically decorated mullions at (reading left to right) the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd bays on the central pavilion; this section also has molded transom bars and tripartite transom windows with classically decorated mullions. Above the pilaster capitals is a frieze containing discs linked by garlands. Above are decorative panels and paired window openings with foliated surrounds, and a machicolated frieze with inset scallop shells above the attic. Capping the facade is a stepped parapet with tablet
reading “INTERBOROUGH RAPID TRANSIT COMPANY” and two diamonds.

The south facade is similar, but with paired pilasters, no decorative pilaster blocks or wreaths, brick transom panels rather than transom windows, and with attic-level window openings grouped in threes rather than paired. The basement openings are grouped in threes. There is a railroad entrance portal with classical surround at the eastern end of the facade, now with a roll-down metal gate. The north facade is similar to the West 58th Street facade, but without historic grouped basement openings; there is a possibly historic basement opening within the 19th bay, and a railroad entrance portal with classical surround at the eastern end.

The IRT Powerhouse officially opened with the rest of the subway system on October 27, 1904. It was essentially two buildings in one, an 83-foot-wide boiler house beside a 117-foot-wide operating, or generating, room to the north. The operating room consisted of three main sections, with its largest, central section containing the engines and generators. The operating room’s narrower southern section contained pumps and steam pipes. Switching equipment was located along the operating room’s north wall. From here, alternating current was distributed, at 11,000 volts, to eight IRT substations scattered along the line in Manhattan and the Bronx, where it was converted to the 625 volts of direct current that powered the trains’ motors. The capacity of the station when completed was approximately 50,000 kilowatts and 100,000 horsepower, enough to run 800 train cars at the same time.

In 1949, the City’s Board of Transportation, which had taken over subway operations nine years earlier, began work on a new generating structure adjoining the original powerhouse on its block’s far western end. This section is clad in tan brick and rises higher than the original building. Its south facade has four bays of tall windows composed of short, horizontal panes in aluminum framing, with brown metal spandrels between floors. The middle of these two bays rise to about the same point as the original building's roof line, while the outer two extend up three more levels. There is an extra bay of narrow windows at the west end, running from the 2nd-4th floors, where it terminates. The north facade has three bays of wider windows spaced farther apart, and only rises one floor above the original building's roof line. The western end bay has a freight entrance with roll-down metal gate at the ground floor. The west facade has a central entrance door topped by metal vents and framed in stainless-steel. To the south there are six bays of tall, narrow openings filled with metal roll-down gates. At the upper floors there are three bays at the south half, with 3-over-7 windows and brown metal spandrels. The north half has a single, large, 3-story opening subdivided by metal mullions into a 5x7 grid of 2-over-4 windows.

In 2017, the building was made a New York City landmark.

s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2374.pdf
digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/76e89930-5103-0134-4e...
dlc.library.columbia.edu/mmw_photographs/10.7916/d8-x30...
www.6sqft.com/former-irt-powerhouse-on-west-59th-street...