Broadway-Chambers Building (New York City, New York) | office building, high-rise, 1900_construction, Beaux-Arts (architecture)

 office building, high-rise, 1900_construction, Beaux-Arts (architecture)

225 foot, 18-story Beaux-Arts office building completed in 1900. Designed by Cass Gilbert, it has a granite base, red brick shaft, and terra-cotta crown. The building was Gilbert's first design in New York City. The 3-story base is rusticated, and ornamented with garlands and cornucopias, as well as stone cornices above the 2nd and 3rd floors. The brick of the 11-story central section was laid to mimic the rustication of the stone below. The windows here, as well as at the base, are deeply recessed, and grouped into pairs. Using terra cotta elements created by the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company of New Jersey, Gilbert encircled the 15th floor with a foliate band (it is the earliest polychrome-glazed in the city). The upper floors were lavished with colorful garlands of flowers, and below the cornice were enormous heads of Mercury, lion heads at the corners, and hanging fruit. The building is capped by a modillioned stone cornice and a copper roof.

Tenants began arriving in April 1900, lured by up-to-date amenities not found elsewhere. Every floor had a mail-chute, almost every office had a sink with running water for washing hands and cleaning up, and there was an independent electrical lighting plant when the reliability of electrical service was unreliable at beset. Several insurance companies were among the first tenants.

hdc.org/buildings/broadway-chambers-building/