233 Broadway, Cass Gilbert, Architect, 1910-1913

— Exploring Downtown —

One of America's earliest and greatest romantic skyscrapers, rising 60 stories above City Hall Park, the Woolworth Building held the coveted title of world's tallest building until losing it to the Chrysler Building in 1929. The Gothic inspired, terra-cotta clad skyscraper was built—and paid for in cash—by the inventor of that great American institution, the five-and-ten-cent store. When asked why he did it, Frank Woolworth said he wanted the building to advertise his stores—though there's also a story about competition with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, which refused Woolworth a mortgage and then watched its own famous tower become the world's second tallest building.

Wander in to what was once called the "Cathedral of Commerce" and you will find yourself in a vaulted arcade resplendent in marble walls, bronze Gothic filigree, and golden mosaics. Mimicking the nave and transept plan of church architecture, Woolworth's lobby rises to a gleaming mosaic ceiling. Voluptuous Gothic detail ranges from elaborately finished mailboxes to austere altar pieces of Labor and Commerce on the mezzanines. Sculpted caricatures by Tom Johnson show architect Cass Gilbert holding a model of the building, Woolworth paying for the building with his nickels and dimes, the builder, the steam engineer, and even Edward J. Hogan, the rental agent—but only because he protested in a letter to Gilbert that he was being left out.

[Photo captions:]"What shall I say of a city that builds the most beautiful cathedral in the world and calls it an office building?" - British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour.

Gargoyles of F. W. Woolworth (top) and Cass Gilbert (bottom).

(Above) Set further back in the lobby is the Marble Hall, whose grand staircase rises to the former entrance of the Irving Trust Company. Secular rather than ecclesiastical in flavor, reminiscent of a flat-roofed medieval guild hall, it rises to a sumptuous glass ceiling inscribed with the names of history's great commercial cities.

ALSO IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD:
[1] Broadway-Chambers Building. A few blocks north at 277 Broadway. Cass Gilbert's first New York skyscraper—completed in 1900—sports terra-cotta ornament inspired by ancient Roman designs.
[2] Wall Street Building. A dockside Gothic skyscraper for the shipping trade—at 90 West Street, opposite Downtown's former shoreline—Cass Gilbert's second tower (1905-1907) offered its original tenants grand views of their own fleets sailing up the Hudson.
[3] United States Courthouse. In his last work (1934-34), at 40 Centre Street in the Court District, Gilbert wrapped the classical colonnade of a typical federal courthouse around a 38-story, 590-foot-tall New York skyscraper.

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Woolworth Building
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