Siegel-Cooper Building

 interesting place, department store, movie / film / TV location, historic landmark, 1897_construction, Beaux-Arts (architecture)

128-foot, 7-story Beaux-Arts mercantile building completed in 1897. Designed by DeLemos & Cordes as the largest store building in the world, for Henry Siegel, president of the successful Chicago department store Siegel, Cooper & Co., it is faced in white brick and terra-cotta and ornately detailed above the first story. It features 2-story triple-arched entrances on West 18th Street and Sixth Avenue; terminating pavilions at the building corners; and a center pavilion, surmounted by a tower. It originally had a fountain in the central atrium which boasted a large statue. Saying "Meet me at the fountain" was a common catchphrase for shoppers along Ladies' Mile. The 13ft, brass and marble statue was carved by Daniel Chester French who would later carve Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. After Siegel-Cooper shuttered, the statue made its way into a memorial at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California where it still stands today.

The Siegel-Cooper Building replaced forty buildings, including stables, a livery, and 17 brownstone rowhouses. In 1899 a 50-foot annex, primarily for storage, was added to the rear of the building. In 1902 Henry Siegel sold the business to a major stock holder, Capt. Joseph B. Greenhut and his son Benedict J. Greenhut. The Greenhuts merged the Siegel Cooper Store and the former B. Altman's across Sixth Avenue, into the largest store in the world. It offered a wide variety of dry goods, as well as other amenities such as a grocery department, barber shop, theater, telegraph office, art gallery, photo studio, bank, dental office, a 350-person restaurant, and a conservatory which sold live plants. At its peak, the store employed over 3,000 people, mostly girls and women.

Sixth Avenue as a shopping center collapsed around World War I. The Big Store, as it was then called, lasted until 1917. The building served as a the Greenhut Building of the Debarkation Hospital No. 3 during WWI for military personnel, and has since been used primarily for warehouse space until recently. It was renovated and re-opened for retail use, Calling itself "The Anchor of the Avenue", with major tenants Bed Bath & Beyond, Marshalls, and TJ Maxx. The Annex building is occupied by 32BJ SEIU, the largest union of property service workers in the U.S.

In the center of the Sixth Avenue facade is a monumental 2-story arcaded entrance, surmounted by a balcony, with coffered soffits in each of the three barrel vaults. Two marble pilasters and two large fluted bronze columns support the imposts. The ground floor retains, on both sides of the center entrance, the show windows from a 1924 alteration. At the 2nd floor, rusticated brick piers rising from the cast-iron cornice over the show windows flank the center pavilion. A terra-cotta molding of bundled rods, under a running dog motif, separates the base from the midsection.

The midsection is faced in white brick, with terra-cotta and marble embellishments. The upper part of the two end pavilions is framed by two engaged columns and a garlanded portico, surmounted by a 4-light oculus with an elaborate bound laurel molding. The banded brick center pavilion is accented by an aedicular motif framing the windows. This consists of a balcony supported on consoles which in turn support columns carrying an arched hood. Three bays at each side of the center pavilion are separated by monumental pilasters and have 3-story window units in a tripartite configuration; the mullion and spandrels at the 3rd floor are of brick and terra-cotta, and resemble a portico; the 4th and 5th floors have cast-iron mullions and spandrels.

A narrow dentiled cornice with rosettes in the fascia divides the midsection from the 6th-floor attic section. The attic has three windows in each bay in each of the three pavilions. Terra-cotta foliate design decorates the mullions and the piers which separate the bays. The piers at each pavilion corner hold a terra-cotta shield inscribed with the Siegel-Cooper monogram. Above a frieze with rosettes is the modillioned metal cornice, decorated with regularly spaced lion's heads. The center bay continues as a 2-story tower base; the dome was removed in 1937. The 1st floor of the tower is rusticated brick with a window and two recessed panels flanked by semi-circular covered porches. The 2nd floor is banded brick with a window under an arched portico at the three visible facades. The end pavilions are raised above the roof. Faced in brick with terra-cotta open work, they are capped by a metal cornice with antefixae at the corners and large lion's head in the center.

The 18th Street facade is 23 bays wide. Similar to the Sixth Avenue facade, it has a 2-story base, 3-story midsection and a single-story attic. There are pavilions at the Sixth Avenue corner and adjacent to the 1899 Annex addition, 50 feet from the building's eastern edge. Above the ground floor this facade is treated similarly to the Sixth Avenue facade. There is a 2-story entrance, similar to the main entrance on Sixth Avenue, except the two center columns are granite instead of bronze. Its recessed openings are glass and aluminum of a more recent date.

In the western end bay, the first story is a continuation of the Sixth Avenue show window style, dating from around 1924. The next three bays of the ground floor, flanked by cast-iron pilasters, retain an earlier show window configuration and have four rows of transoms. The 6th through the 9th bays are flanked by rusticated brick piers and have brick panels with doors and window openings in a tripartite format. Three bays are devoted to the entrance, the four bays following the entrance (numbers 13-16), are similar to the preceding bays. The 17th through the 21st bays have metal spandrels below transoms, with the lower portion filled with windows and doors. The first story of the 2-bay Annex addition has a large garage entrance in the eastern bay and two rows of three windows in the western bay. A narrow transition bay between the Annex and the earlier building has a small window with a latticed iron grating at each floor above the first. Above the first story, the two bays of the Annex are treated similarly to those found in the earlier building, with the exception that the mullions are not decorated in the attic level.

The 19th Street facade is 21 bays wide; above the ground floor it is similar to the one on 18th Street although it lacks a monumental entrance and center pavilion. (The Annex faces only West 18th Street). At the ground floor there are four bays of cast-iron framed show windows from the western corner. The 5th through the 9th bays, from the corner, are flanked by rusticated brick piers and have brick panels. The 5th bay has a door below the windows. The 10th bay is framed by granite pilasters with a decorated door hood and the Siegel-Cooper monogram. The 11th through the 15th bays are flanked by rusticated brick piers and have tripartite windows except that the 11th, 12th, and 13th bays have corrugated garage doors and the 15th bay has a small service door. The 16th through the 19th bays have cast-iron pilasters rather than piers, and a continuous metal spandrel under transoms; the transoms of the 15th bay contain panes in a latticework pattern. Brick piers frame the 20th bay, which has metal spandrel and transoms over a service entrance. The 21st bay is the transition bay following the terminating pavilion; it is flanked by a brick pier to the west and a cast-iron pilaster to the east.

The interior and exterior was used as a filming location for S2E2 of the USA Network series "White Collar".

www.nyc-architecture.com/CHE/CHE018-Siegel-CooperDryGoo...
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www.jstor.org/stable/community.12103957
www.jstor.org/stable/community.12133854
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