The Lost New York Cotton Exchange Building - William and Beaver Streets

 

The Architectural Record, 1898 (copyright expired)

The New York Cotton Exchange was organized in 1870.  Historian Robert P. McDougall recalled in 1923, "Up to that time trading in cotton had been done in brokers' offices in and around Hanover Square, which still retained some flavor of the days when it was the residential site of wealthy New Yorkers and of distinguished French émigrés who had fled from the Revolution."  The new exchange met in rented rooms at 142 Pearl Street.

The Pearl Street building.  The Story of the Cotton Exchange, 1923 (copyright expired)

Two years later, the Cotton Exchange moved into India House at 1 Hanover Square.  That building sufficed until a committee was appointed on December 6, 1880 to consider sites and architects for a new headquarters.  On June 10, 1882, The Evening Post reported, "The most important private sale of the week was the purchase of the ground on Pearl, William, and Beaver Streets for the new Cotton Exchange Building."  The article said the exchange had paid $382,500 for the parcel.

Six architects submitted plans and on May 5, 1883 The American Architect & Building News reported, "Mr. George B. Post's designs for the Cotton Exchange Building have been accepted."  Five months later, The Sanitary Engineer announced that Post had filed plans for the eight-story structure.  "The estimated cost of the building is $530,000," said the article."  The combined cost of property and construction brought the outlay to more than $28 million by 2024 conversion.

As construction neared completion in January 1885, rental space was offered.  On January 29, The New York Times reported, "Little books containing elaborate diagrams of the interior of the new structure have been distributed among the members, and yesterday a circular was posted stating that a choice of offices would be disposed of at public sale on Feb. 4."

Construction was completed in 1895.  Above a three-story base, George Browne Post's neo-French Renaissance structure broke into two sections, each treated slightly differently, including the bases.  The upper floors at the corner morphed into a tower inspired by the Chateau de Chambord.  The Architectural Record said the New York Cotton Exchange building made the "bold sacrifice of rentable space to make the space which remains more useful and more agreeable to the inhabitants, by leaving large external courts upon which windows may open directly."  The article noted,

The round tower, by which the irregular angle is occupied, is an obvious resource in such a case, and Paris is full of such round towers used at the acute angles of meeting streets and avenues, but the New York business world has generally been too sharp-set for office rents to allow of such decorative treatment of its sites.

The critic felt that because of its striking tower, "the building is one of the most spirited structures in the business quarter of New York."

A hand-colored postcard highlighted the red tiled roofs.

"On a beautiful April morning, April 30, 1885," as described by Robert P. MacDougall, a band led the members of the New York Cotton Exchange from the old building to the new structure.  "The opening ceremonies were held on the great floor which was 108 feet long and 71 feet wide with a ring for trading in about the middle."  That evening, the celebrations were capped with a collation and ball.

Members were initially concerned about the acoustics of the trading floor.  On May 3, 1885, The New York Times reported, "In its present unfinished condition the board room of the new Cotton Exchange Building echoes the bids of brokers in a manner that is extremely unpleasant, if not confusing, during the busy hours."  The hard surfaces bounced the shouts of the brokers around the cavernous space, creating a cacophony.  The builders assured the members, "this will be remedied when all the window shades, furniture, and chandeliers are put in place."  

The echoing surfaces of the trading room initially caused problems.  photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York. 

Among the firms renting office space in the building was the insurance brokerage firm of Leonard & Moody.  Until 1884, Horace Moody's cousin William Gantz had worked for the firm, but that year he was discharged.  A reporter from The Evening World explained, "young Gantz, was brought up from infancy and educated by the Moodys."

Four years later, on August 2, 1888, Gantz appeared in Moody's office, asking for a loan of $30.  The Evening World reported, "Mr. Moody said he could not lend it to him, and as Gantz went out of the office he said that he would have it by hook or crook."  The article continued, "Mr. Moody went on a vacation the next day and when he returned found that his name had been forged for the exact amount which Gantz said he would have by 'hook or crook.'"

A young man had cashed the two $15 checks at Delmonico's restaurant across the street.  His description matched William Gantz.  Moody had his cousin arrested and Gantz was positively identified by the Delmonico employees.  

Although Gantz insisted he was innocent, he was locked up in the Tombs awaiting trial.  A conviction would result in a sentence at the state prison.  But then, a third attempt to cash a check at Delmonico's occurred.  Seventeen-year-old Charles E. Keeler was arrested.  He, too, had been employed by Leonard & Moody and had been fired in the spring.  

The Evening World reported on August 25, "Keeler, whose mental balance is not the most stable, confessed his guilt and acknowledged the uttering of the checks for passing which Gantz was in prison."  William Gantz was exonerated and the Delmonico's manager and cashier tepidly acknowledged their embarrassing mistake, saying, "they cash so many checks for their customers in person and by messenger that they may have been mistaken."

Another tenant in the building was W. R. Grace & Co.  It was headed by former Mayor William Russell Grace.  On October 29, 1890, The Sun remarked, "Mr. Grace has a big office in the Cotton Exchange building, and there are one or two smaller offices opening into it."

 

Like Leonard & Moody, Reinhard Sidenburg & Co. was the victim of forgers.  But in this case, the crime far exceeded the $45 drawn against the former's accounts.  In September 1893, $500 in cash went missing from a safe in the Rieinhard Sidenburg & Co. offices.  It triggered an inspection of the books that yielded shocking results.  About $20,000 was missing--nearly $700,000 in today's money.

On Saturday night, September 23, the firm's bookkeeper, Ernest J. Greene, was arrested at his Brooklyn house.  The cashier, John F. Collins, was arrested at his desk on Monday afternoon.  Both men confessed to the embezzlement.  The New-York Tribune explained how they perpetrated the crime.

Either Collins or Greene would erase by acids from checks made out to a customer the name of the payee, and substitute "bearer."  The dishonest employe[e]s would get the checks cashed and pocket the money.  They took care to intercept such checks and destroy them before they could be seen by any member of the firm when returned.

To cover up their crimes, false entries were made in the books.  The newspaper said that had they not stolen the cash, they could have gotten away with the scheme longer.  Collins and Greene were just 24 and 23 years old respectively.

Amazingly, just ten years after the Cotton Exchange Building was completed, on February 13, 1905, The Wall Street Journal reported, "Plans for the new Cotton Exchange building are to be voted on next Wednesday."  The demolition seemed to be confirmed, the article saying that the new building would cost "about $1,500,000."  Something derailed the plans, however, but the project was resurrected seven years later.  On September 25, 1912, The New York Times reported, "It is planned to tear down the old Cotton Exchange building at the corner of William and Beaver Streets, and to erect a new building at a cost of $1,755,000."  This replacement structure was proposed to rise 22 stories.

But, once again, the plans were scrapped.  Among the tenants in 1919 were the classrooms of the "commercial courses" of New York University, as described by the New York Herald on November 27.  

At the time, the world was suffering through the Great Influenza epidemic.  It broke out in 1918 and killed 675,000 Americans that first year.  And so occupants of the Cotton Exchange Building were no doubt panicked when 40-year-old commission merchant Vincent E. Mitchell died of influenza in January 1920.  The New York Times noted on January 17, "His wife died a few hours later, also of influenza, and his mother and two small children are ill with the same disease."  Happily, the disease did not spread throughout the building.

The streets of the Financial District were quiet in this postcard from the turn of the last century.

On December 16, 1921, the New York Herald reported that the Cotton Exchange would be renting space in the New York Produce Exchange building "from May 1, 1922 to May 1, 1923, while its new $3,000,000 building is under construction."  This time the demolition plans would happen.  Three weeks later, the New-York Tribune reported that Donn Barber's plans for a 24-story replacement had been accepted, noting "construction of the building was delayed for various reasons."

Donn Barber's replacement structure survives on the site.

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Lafayette A. Goldstone's 1930 19 Rector Street (88 Greenwich Street)

 

photo by ZeligJr

In 1929, months before the Stock Market crash that would usher in the Great Depression, the Gening Realty Corporation broke ground for what was intended to be a 40-story office building at the southwest corner of Rector and Greenwich Streets.  Gening Realty Corporation was described as a "syndicate representing the General Realty & Utilities Company and A. M. Bing & Son."  On March 11, 1930, the New York Sun reported that General Realty & Utilities had financed a $3.35 million building loan for the project--a significant $61 million in 2024.

The article noted, "The forty-story building under construction at 19 Rector street [is] from plans by Lafayette A. Goldstone."  Goldstone had dissolved his partnership with William L. Rouse in 1926.  The highly successful firm of Rouse & Goldstone had designed dozens of substantial Manhattan buildings, most of them apartment houses.

By the time construction was completed later that year, the plans had been scaled back to 35 floors of offices and a penthouse apartment.  (In 1936, the penthouse was converted to offices, as well.)  Goldstone's Art Deco skyscraper was clad in beige brick above a two-story limestone base.  Numerous asymmetrical setbacks at the upper levels provided several terraces.

The two-story base, see here in 1939, is only moderately changed today.  photo from the Gottscho-Schleisner Collection of the Library of Congress

Despite the ongoing Depression, the offices filled with tenants.  Louis W. Abrons, the president of General Realty & Utilities Corporation, told the New York Sun in May 1933, "It is interesting to note that the leading applicants for space comprise, in addition to members of the Stock Exchange and Curb Exchange, accountants and firms associated with railroads and steamship lines."  

Typical was the brokerage firm John L. Morgenthau & Co.  It was headed by millionaire John L. Morgenthau, the nephew of former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau.  The firm had its offices in the building as early as 1932.  Among the few tenants not involved with brokerage or shipping were the Reynolds Metals Company and Dobbins-Trinity Coal, Inc.  In 1938 the Waterman Steamship Agency, Ltd. leased the entire 19th floor.  

Engineers with The H. K. Ferguson Company work at drafting tables in 1947 (top), while clerical workers occupy the mid-century equivalent of work cubicles.  The firm, which had branch offices in Cleveland and Houston, was industrial engineers and builders.  photo from the Gottscho-Schleisner Collection of the Library of Congress

The tenant list became more diverse after mid-century.  The 1950s continued to see shipping related firms like the American Railway Institute and the Pearl Assurance Company here.  But the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company occupied offices by 1951, and in 1959 Wood & Selick Coconut Co., Inc. and the Camp Fire Club of America were tenants.

By 1960, a major tenant was the New York Telephone Company.  Among its employees was chief telephone investigator Harold A. McElroy.  Among his responsibilities was performing court ordered wiretaps on suspected criminals.  

Late in 1961, McElroy was visited by Police Captain Anthony Obremski, who, according to McElroy, "identified himself as the new commander of the Third Division (Midtown)" and asked for his cooperation.  He told McElroy, "the third Division had a fund to compensate those who gave the police valuable information and that Mr. McElroy would get $100 a month," as reported by The New York Times.

Obremski telephoned McElroy "from time to time," who then supplied him with confidential information obtained through wiretaps.  Once a month a plainclothes officer would meet McElroy in the hallways of 19 Rector Street to slip him his $100.  He told investigators later, as reported by The New York Times, "he had not regarded the payoffs as bribes.  He said he had not reported them on his income tax forms because he looked upon them as gratuities, for helping the police cut corners."

In fact, Obremski was misusing the information being collected for legitimate NYPD investigations.  He was later arrested and charged with using "information about wiretaps to protect bookmakers who were paying graft and to shake down others," said The New York Times on August 11, 1964.  McElroy was suspended from his job but avoided prosecution by testifying.

In 1972 the West Side Highway Project moved into offices on the sixth floor here.  On April 23, The New York Times said, "An unusual amalgam of city, state and private talent is quietly at work here, drawing up plans for a new West Side Highway."  The planners were "quiet," said the article, "because opposition to some earlier proposals has been fierce."

Two years later, on March 26, 1974, The New York Times reported, "Despite protests from community planners, key state and city officials appeared ready yesterday to press for Federal designation of the entire Hudson shore corridor from the Battery to the George Washington Bridge as an interstate expressway route."  The project included replacing the "dilapidated elevated highway," and was the first step in the massive redevelopment of the Hudson riverfront.

In 1997, 19 Rector Street was purchased by Greystone Management.  On the evening of December 23, it "brought its own nonunion workers to the building," reported The New York Times.  "When the regular maintenance crew showed up a few hours later, they found that their jobs had been eliminated."  The 25 workers, some who had worked in the building for more than two decades, found themselves unemployed two days before Christmas.  The article continued, "The displaced workers said Greystone offered them applications for jobs with no sick time, virtually no benefits and lower wages--$8 an hour, compared with $15."

Importantly, the article mentioned, "The 37-story [sic] Art Deco building, built in the 1920's [sic], reportedly will be gutted and turned into condominiums."  Two years later, on November 21, 1999, the newspaper began an article saying, "Just when it seemed there couldn't be another conversion from office to residential in the Financial District, developers announced that a former office tower, an Art Deco skyscraper at 88 Greenwich Street, is being turned into rental apartments."  For some reason, the developers, The World-Wide Group, had decided to change the address.

The article said they, "are gutting the 38-story [sic] building at Rector Street, making 461 apartments."  Costing $100 million, the reconstruction actually resulted in 452 units.

A year after the building's opening, the World Trade Center was attacked on September 11, 2001.  Residents were faced with health hazards, difficulty in access to the building, and curtailed services.  On October 1, the tenants voted to go on a rent strike, "demanding break [sic] leases and to get reduced rents," reported The New York Times.  A class-action suit was proposed, based not only on the health and services concerns, but "on emotional issues."  A lawyer for tenant David Frazer told the reporter, "I want that mother who called with kids whose window looks out over the disaster site.  I want to put her before the judge."

In 2006 the building was converted to condominiums, called Greenwich Club.  Its residents would face another disaster in October 2012--Hurricane Sandy.  According to The New York Times, the storm's floodwaters, "dislodged an oil tank, which hit a ceiling beam and cracked open, necessitating a major cleanup."  In reporting on the downtown damages on December 5, MetroNews said the building "may not be habitable for months."

At least one resident, Jonathan Stark, went to court, filing a $35 million lawsuit in November.  The New York Times reported he accused "the board and managers of failing to safeguard the building against floods they knew were coming, then blocked residents' attempts to file insurance claims.  Managers have told residents they could not return for four months."  Repairs were eventually completed and the building reopened in January 2013.

In June 2016, the 9/11 Tribute Center moved into the ground floor of 88 Greenwich Street.  It had been located at 120 Liberty Street since 2006.

photograph by Tdorante10

Having survived a three devastating events--a depression, a terrorist attack, and a natural disaster--Lafayette A. Goldstone's Art Deco skyscraper survives nearly unchanged externally.

many thanks to author and reader Laurie Gwen Shapiro for requesting this post

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The Lost Union Trust Company Bldg - 78-82 Broadway

 

The Architectural Record, 1898 (copyright expired)

Organized in 1864, the Union Trust Company occupied the building at 73 Broadway before breaking ground for a new headquarters slightly north at 78-82 Broadway in 1888.  Designed by George Browne Post, it would be what some critics deemed his masterpiece.  The beauty of its Romanesque Revival architecture vied for attention with its soaring height.  As it neared completion on November 16, 1889, the Real Estate Record & Guide noted:

Its gradual progress skywards has been watched with interest by the crowds which passed it by day after day, and it is now nearly up to the roof.  It is to be eight stories high, exclusive of a basement, ground floor, banking floor and roof story--in all, practically twelve floors.

A decade later, in 1899, architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler would credit Post with devising the tripartite formula for tall buildings--base, shaft and capital--in his Union Trust Company building.  The structure ran through the block, with a second facade on New Street.  They were identical other than the materials used.  The Record & Guide explained, "The Broadway front of the building is of granite, considerable iron also being used.  The New street front is to be of buff brick and terra cotta."

On Broadway, the three great arches of the base were echoed in the multi-level arches of the midsection.  Above the arcaded tenth floor rose a châteauesque mansard with prominent dormers.

American Architect & Building News, February 1, 1890 (copyright expired)

According to the Record & Guide, the Union Trust Company had paid $1,175,000 for the property and spent another $600,000 in construction.  The total outlay would translate to $60.6 million in 2024.  The journal opined, "When the building is finally completed it will certainly be one of the handsomest ornaments to the lower part of Broadway."

Construction was completed in the fall of 1890.  On October 22, The New York Times wrote:

Splendor and security go hand in hand in the magnificent structure erected by the Union Trust Company of New-York at 80 Broadway.  In its exterior the building is one of the best examples of pure Romanesque architecture extant, while its interior fittings, every feature of which was designed by the architect, George B. Post, are in perfect keeping and harmony with the general plan.

The Architectural Record remarked, "Indeed, we have no business building in New York which is more comely in design than the Union Trust."

The 30-foot-high banking room, which The New York Times said was "admirably lighted," ran from Broadway to New Street.  The article explained, "The flooring is a rich Mosaic, all the woodwork is of mahogany, the counters are of Italian marble, and all the railings and partitions are of heavy lacquered brass."  On the New Street side, looking out onto the Stock Exchange, was the Trustees Room, with "parqueted flooring, mahogany wainscoting, paneled ceiling, and silver-finished walls."

The Record & Guide reported, "The eight floors and the roof story vary in height from 12 to 13-1/2 feet, and will contain single offices and suites."

The Union Trust Company building originally dwarfed its neighbors.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Five years later, the height of Post's structure had been surpassed, but its beauty had not.  Writing in The Brickbuilder in January 1895, John Beverley Robinson said, 

The Union Trust Building...in its day was reckoned a very high building, with its ten or twelves stories, but is little to brag as far as height is concerned, alongside of its nineteen or twenty-storied neighbor.  As to other matters than height though, it is much to brag of.  I have heard it counted by those who know, and I am inclined to count it myself, as the best office building that Mr. George B. Post, the architect, ever did, perhaps the best that anybody ever did.

The Record & Guide had noted in 1889, "The construction is of a fire-proof character throughout, and there will be practically nothing in the building to burn, except it be the furniture and possibly the doors and trimmings."  The article noted the steel beam construction of the floors, wrought iron columns encased in "burnt clay coverings," and the wrought and cast iron stairways with marble treads. 

That fire-proof quality of the building would be seriously tested a quarter of a century later.  On September 29, 1914, The New York Times titled an article, "Union Trust Co. Building Ablaze / Fire Starts on an Upper Floor of Costly Structure at 80 Broadway / Soon Spreads To Roof."

A watchman discovered the fire at 3:15 in the morning and ran to the fire call box at Rector Street and Broadway.  The New York Times reported, "Before the firemen arrived the flames, which spread with great rapidity, had extended to the roof and were mushrooming out over Broadway."  The response had been rapid, the article saying, "within three or four minutes after the alarm was turned in Broadway for two or three blocks in either direction from the burning structure was filled with fire engines, hose carts, and water towers."

The firefighters met unexpected hindrances.  While one group was attaching a hose to the fire hydrant at Wall and New Streets, the hydrant "burst and sent a flood of water flowing down Wall Street," said the article.  A few minutes later, another hydrant exploded at Broadway and Wall Street, spraying the front of Trinity Church.  Nevertheless, Post's fire resistant construction worked and the blaze was extinguished without major damage.  The New York Times mentioned that inside the offices and vaults of the Union Trust Company were "millions in securities and cash."

The New Street entrance was a mirror-image of Broadway.  The Architectural Record, 1898 (copyright expired)

The upper floors were occupied by tenants like attorneys and brokers.  Among them in the post-World War I years was Nicholas F. Brady.  In December 1921, a well-dressed man entered the French Jewelry Company at 2202 Broadway and ordered four large diamonds to be made into a lavalliere (a pendant worn on a chain).  He left a deposit of $100, giving his name as Nicholas F. Brady of 80 Broadway.

On December 13, The New York Times reported, "He returned yesterday, but instead of paying for the stones, he drew a pistol and ordered Mr. Johnnides, the proprietor, to throw up his hands."  The crook then scooped up the diamonds from a safe drawer, along with a diamond bracelet and a large, unset diamond, and fled.

Expectedly, detectives paid a visit to Nicholas F. Brady's office in the Union Trust Company Building.  He did not match the description of the perpetrator and was cleared of suspicion.  "Mr. Brady's secretary said he could not account for a hold-up man using the name of his employer," reported The New York Times, "and he knew of no one who had a grudge against Mr. Brady."

At the time of the impersonation, the end of the line was nearing for the building.  Demolition began in 1929, but the venerable structure did not go without a fight.  On June 30, The New York Times reported, "the thickness of walls almost half a century old has slowed up the work of destruction."  Contractor Albert A. Volk told the reporter, "he has encountered no building walls so solidly constructed as these."  The article continued, "The walls, he stated yesterday, were four feet thick at the top, but at the bottom were more than ten feet through with brick and cement so firmly welded together ordinary methods of wrecking have been unavailing."

Eventually, though, the building once described as "perhaps the best anybody ever did" was gone, replaced with the massive, block-engulfing Irving Trust Building.

many thanks to reader Doug Wheeler for suggesting this post

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The Lost Commercial Cable Building - 20-22 Broad Street

 

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

John William Mackay was brought to America by his parents as an infant.  Destitute, they lived in the impoverished and dangerous Five Points district.  The immigrant boy who initially survived by selling newspapers made a massive fortune mining in the West, emerging as one of the wealthiest men in America.

Mackay organized the Commercial Cable Company with James Gordon Bennett, Jr. in 1884 to lay and operate the trans-Atlantic cable.  It was a direct competitor of Jay Gould's Western Union operation.  When Western Union refused to relay messages initiated by Commercial Cable, Mackay bought the Postal Telegraph Company and began buying up and consolidating other small telegraph companies until by 1886 his firm was an equal to Western Union.

In 1894 Mackay moved both companies into his new Postal Telegraph Building, designed by George Edward Harding & Gooch at 253 Broadway.  It was a temporary arrangement and a year later ground was broken for the Commercial Cable Building, designed by the same architects.  The site, just south of the New York Stock Exchange, extended from Broad Street through to New Street. 

The Commercial Cable Building was designed to impress.  On November 27, 1895, The Electrical Engineer described the rendering as showing "a handsome and imposing twenty-one story structure, above which rise two towers surmounted by domes representing the two hemispheres.  The towers will be connected by a mansard roof more than three hundred feet above the street level."   While the journalist said, "The general style of the building is the Italian Renaissance," the architects liberally lavished it with Beaux Arts decorations.

George Edward Harding & Gooch included the latest in conveniences and technology.  There would be six "fast electric elevators," as well as lavatories and "retiring rooms" on each floor.  The Commercial Cable Company would occupy the entire ground floor "which will be of unusual height," said The Electrical Engineer and "will be furnished entirely in marble."  The building included nineteen stories of rental offices.  The "total investment in land and structure will represent an outlay of at least $2,000,000," said that article--just under $72 million in 2024.

The architects' 1895 rendering depicted fenestration along the southern side--a feature that would cause troubles later.  Record & Guide, June 6, 1896 (copyright expired)

The Commercial Cable Building was completed in 1897 to general acclaim.  On December 24, the New-York Tribune, saying the structure "lifts its head far up into the clouds," called it "an ornament to the street."  The article added, "It is handsome in design, and represents some of the best ideas of modern building."  But while both the exterior and interior were considered beautiful, the building's function for the Commercial Cable Company was paramount.  "The lines of the Commercial Cable Company diverge to all parts of the civilized world, and the best possible service is furnished both at home and abroad," said the article.

The Architectural Record's critic was less enthusiastic, saying the designer "has put a huge brass knob at either end of the top, giving his skyline two competing features in place of one dominant feature."  He decried that the Commercial Cable Building, "reeks of a rowdy picturesqueness like cowboy slang."

The building had barely opened when it was the scene of an unusual suicide.  On September 24, The Sun titled an article, "Cat Suspected of Suicide" and explained that the janitor's "well-known cat named Thomas" had recently been intimate with a female tabby that disappeared.  The article said, "Yesterday morning Thomas was seen about the lower floors of the building.  Shortly before noon one of the elevator men saw the cat go upstairs.  That was the last seen of it alive."  Before long, Thomas "dropped from the roof of the Commercial Cable Building into New street."

American Architect and Building News, December 11, 1897 (copyright expired)

The tenants on the southern side of the building enjoyed sweeping views of New York Harbor.  But that was threatened in January 1902 when the property next door was sold to Blair & Co.  On May 16, the New-York Tribune reported, "Many of the tenants of the Commercial Cable Building are angry, because much of the light and air on the south side of the building is soon to be cut off by the erection of a new home for Blair & Co., bankers."  When the property was purchased, the Commercial Cable Company was promised that a light court would provide light and air.  But now, said the New-York Tribune, "The plans for the building to be put up by Blair & Co. call, however, for a court, but it will be within instead of outside the building."

Blair & Co. erected its building inches from the Commercial Cable Building, greatly reducing the rental values of the offices on that side.  

photo by Irving Underhill, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

John Borowski was hired as a window cleaner in May 1905.  He aspired to be an elevator operator and four months later, when he could make time, began learning.  On March 25, 1906, the New-York Tribune reported, "Yesterday he started to practise [sic] with one of the elevators in the annex.  On the twelfth floor he left the car for some purpose, and when he came back evidently started it before he was well in the car."  The young man was crushed between the floor of the car and the top of the door.

Such accidents in the decades before the invention of elevator safety devices were not uncommon.  Less than two years later, on January 13, 1908, the newspaper reported that 15-year-old Harry De Freis "was killed yesterday afternoon by falling down the elevator shaft."  He had opened the grate and looked down to see where the car was, and lost his balance.

Photographer Irving Underhill captured the Commercial Cable Building from between the cornices of two structures in 1903.  King's Views of New York, 1903 (copyright expired)

Bootleg liquor and liberated flappers of the Roaring '20s visited the Commercial Cable Building in 1921 with nearly disastrous results.  Florence Rogers, a 21-year-old telephone operator, was invited to what she described as "an after-hours party in a brokerage office" on the 16th floor here on August 3.  Milton Roth, a clerk in William H. Kemp & Co., had a key to the offices and arranged the party.  There were three men and three women.

The New-York Tribune reported, "In the office cocktails were served, Miss Rogers said, and there was violin and harmonica music.  But things got ugly.  According to her, "she drank cocktails because she was told that if she did not swallow the liquor it would be forced down her throat."

At about midnight the two young women and one of the men left.  Things then became worse for Florence Rogers.  The men, one of whom had a pistol, attacked her, tearing off her blouse.  When she attempted to get to the telephone, one of the men disconnected it from the wall and Florence was "struck on the face."  Luckily, her screams attracted the attention of late-working employees in the building and as they came down the corridor, the two men fled.  When police arrived, "they found Miss Rogers in such a hysterical state that an ambulance was called."  (Not surprisingly, Milton Roth was fired the next day, however it does not appear he was arrested.)

In its November 1926 issue, The Commercial Telegraphers Journal reported that the Postal Telegraph Company was leaving its Broadway home and moving into the Commercial Cable Building.  "It is now felt that greater operating efficient will result from having both land lines and cable systems terminate under the same roof," said the article.

The following year, the New York Stock Exchange leased three floors in the building, including the coveted first floor--heretofore the bastion of the Commercial Cable Company.  Then, on October 4, 1928, The New York Times reported that negotiations were nearly completed between the Mackay Companies and the New York Stock Exchange for the purchase of 20 Broad Street.  "The Stock Exchange, it is understood, plans to take over the building as an annex to its present quarters at Wall and Broad Streets."  The article added, "There is a possibility, it was said yesterday, that if the Exchange buys a building it will raze it and build an annex especially to meet its needs."

That did not happen, however.  The negotiations fell through and The New York Stock Exchange, instead, continued renting space in the Commercial Cable Building.  In 1941, when the Exchange renewed its lease of five floors, The New York Times commented, "The building is not in use above the fifteenth floor."

What seemed inevitable came to pass in 1954 when The New York Times on August 16 announced that The Hanover Bank had purchased "more than half of the Broadway blockfront from Wall Street to Exchange Place."  The bank planned a 400,000 square feet skyscraper on the site, said the article.  "It is expected to be completed in 1956."

image via streeteasy.com

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The 1892 Postal Telegraph Building - 253 Broadway

 

photo by epicgenius

Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1831, John William Mackay was brought to America as an infant by his parents.  They lived in the notorious and impoverished Five Points district.  Mackay's father died when he was a boy, and he survived by selling newspapers.

At the age of 20, he struck out to the West to find his fortune in prospecting.  Working for $4 a day in the Comstock Lode mine, he judiciously used his earnings to buy small claims.  In 1865 he hit a vein that earned him $1.6 million--nearly $30 million in 2024.  Not content, the formerly penniless immigrant partnered with James Graham Fair, William S. O'Brien and James C. Flood and increased their operations, emerging as three of the wealthiest men in America.

In 1884, Mackay partnered with publisher James Gordon Bennett, Jr. to organize the Commercial Cable Company to lay and operate the trans-Atlantic cable--a direct competitor of Jay Gould's Western Union operation.  When Western Union refused to relay cables initiated by Commercial Cable, MacKay purchased the Postal Telegraph Company and began buying up and consolidating other small telegraph companies until, by 1886, his firm was an equal to Western Union.

On March 23, 1892, the Postal Telegraph Company secured the land lease from Trinity Church for the northwest corner of Broadway and Murray Streets.  (The property was originally part of the tract known as "the Queen's Farm," granted to Trinity Church in 1705 by Queen Anne.)  The firm of George Edward Harding & Gooch was commissioned to design the 14-story skyscraper on the site.  The architects' neo-Renaissance design included striking and unexpected elements, like the 30-foot-wide, three-story recessed entrance; the 12th-floor loggia; and the bold copper-bronze cornice.

photo by epicgenius

The building was initially home to both The Postal Telegraph-Cable Company and The Commercial Cable Company.  The ground floor would house mainly the shipping, delivery and warehouse operations.  The second floor was designed for a bank, and the third through ninth floors held rental space.  The companies' executive and administrative offices would be on the tenth and eleventh floors, while the 19-foot-high twelfth floor would hold the switchboards and transmitting and receiving apparatus.  Atop the roof and unseen from the street, the fourteenth floor was leased to the Hardware Club.

An announcement anticipated the projected building eight months after the corner was leased.  The Sun, October 9, 1892 (copyright expired)

On October 30, 1893, a year after ground was broken, tragedy occurred on the job site.   That afternoon a homeless man, Thomas Bradley walked into the construction site.  The New-York Tribune described him as "a tall, famished, hollow-eyed creature, dressed like a scarecrow in needy circumstances."  He told the construction superintendent, Frederick Lewis Mathes simply, "My name's Bradley--I want work."  

The New York Times reported, "Not wishing to have any tramps about," Mathes ordered him out.  Bradley left, but returned six hours later.  According to the New-York Tribune, Mathes spat, "You scoundrel.  I warned you to keep away from this place!  How dare you come back?"  And with that Bradley pointed a revolver at the superintendent and fired, killing him.  The murder was followed by a shoot-out with police before Bradley was apprehended.

A week before the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company signed its lease on the property, The Home Life Insurance Company had acquired the lot next door a week earlier.  The two buildings rose simultaneously, their architects paying no heed to what the other had designed.  The disparate results angered some architectural critics, the Record & Guide complaining they were "an ill-matched couple."

The Real Estate Record & Guide captioned this rendering, "An Ill-Matched Couple" on October 6, 1894 (copyright expired)

Slowed by a construction strike, the Postal Telegraph Building was completed in the spring of 1894.  On June 19, the New-York Tribune reported, "The Postal Telegraph-Cable Company and the Commercial Cable Company, having got well settled int the big new Postal Telegraph Building, No. 253 Broadway at Murray-st, last evening invited [guests and press] to inspect the new structure."

The journalist was more impressed with the building's modern technology than its decorations.  "The building has its own dynamos, and the interior is simply studded with electric lights," he wrote.  "The elevators are of a new and improved kind, being, indeed, the first made after the design.  They are run by electricity.  A new device for signalling [sic] is used on them, so that one presses the button instead of shouting 'up' or 'down'--often too late to stop the car."

Female employees enjoyed electric lighting in the new building.  (original source unknown)

Two weeks earlier, the Hardware Club had opened.  On June 1, 1894, The New York Times described, "The rooms are finished in mahogany, and furnished with solid mahogany furniture.  Where not of mosaic tiling, the floors are carpeted with rich Wilton, in harmony with the ceiling and the wall decorations."  Along the Murray Street side were the club's dining rooms, capable of seating 200 persons.  "By going from room to room, one may see the entire city, bay and harbor of New-York, with portions of Brooklyn and New-Jersey," said the article.

Two years after the building's completion, John W. Mackay rehired Harding & Gooch to design a separate building for the Commercial Cable Company on Broad Street.  

George Edward Harding was an ardent promoter of concrete floors as a fire-proofing method, and had used them in the construction of the Postal Telegraph Building.  (He did the same with the Commercial Cable Company Building.)  His precautions proved well-founded in 1898 when an explosion occurred next door to the Home Life Insurance Building on the night of December 4.  The Illustrated American wrote, "In an incredibly short space of time the whole building was a seething mass of flames seeking fresh food.  They found it in the adjacent structure of sixteen stories, known as the Home Life Insurance Building."

George Edward Harding surveyed the scene a few days later, telling a newspaper that the Postal Telegraph Building was "saved by its cement floors."  The Record & Guide agreed, writing on December 10, "The fire was unable to gain any headway in the Postal Telegraph Building, chiefly owning to the incombustible nature of its floors."

Real Estate Record & Guide, December 10, 1898 (copyright expired) 

Concrete floors could not stop a blaze from beginning within the building, however (although it prevented it from spreading).  At 9:25 on the night of October 16, 1900, a fire broke out in a storeroom of the Hardware Club.  The New York Times mentioned, "The Hardware Club is one of the most expensively appointed clubs in the lower part of the city.  It leases the entire fourteenth floor of the Postal Telegraph Building.  A number of valuable rugs and paintings were damaged by smoke and water."  Firefighters fought the blaze for 45 minutes before finally extinguishing it.  

Although the Hardware Club was closed for two weeks for repairs, Gooch's concrete floors had done their job again.  Edgar C. Bradley, vice-president of the Postal Telegraph Company, told a reporter from the New-York Tribune the next day, "At 9:30 this morning we are carrying on business as we were at this hour yesterday morning.  Not a single operator has been thrown out of work by last night's fire."

In 1928, following its merger with the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, the Postal Telegraph Company left its headquarters  and moved to 67 Broad Street.   

Nine years later, on July 8, 1937, The New York Times reported that "the entire interior of the building has been rebuilt.  It now conforms to present-day building and fire regulations and offers modern, up-to-date office accommodations."  Architect Ely Jacques Kahn had designed the renovations.  The article said, "Outstanding among the changes affected on the exterior is the erection of a three-story loggia of glass brick encircled just above the first story by a six-foot, blue-glass panel."  It added, "The renovated structure will be known as the Paragon Building.

Ironically, two years later, on April 22, 1939, The New York Times reported that the Postal Telegraph Company had moved back into its former home, leasing six floors of the building from Trinity Church, the current owner.  A representative explained the firm was "returning to 253 Broadway because the building was built to accommodate the company's telegraphic requirements."

The arrangement would not last long.  When the Foreign Funds Control (the investigating unit of the Treasury Department), moved into 253 Broadway in February 1942, The New York Times reported, "The new location, a fourteen-story building, is entirely occupied by government agencies."  But that, too, would soon change.

Four years later, on November 24, 1946, The New York Times reported, "In one of the largest transactions of the year in the 'downtown' district the Home Life Insurance Company acquired the fourteen-story office building at 253 Broadway...from the Trinity Church Corporation for an indicated cash price of more than $1,700,000."  The article noted, "Ownership of the combined buildings will remove the necessity for construction of a new home office."  Joined internally, the two 1892 structures took the name of the Home Life Insurance Building.

photo by beyond my ken

The Home Life Insurance Company sold the building in October 1985 to the newly formed 253 Broadway Associates.  Purchased by the city in 1988 for $26 million, the combined buildings were designated an individual landmark in 1991.

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