The Liberty Tower, formerly the Sinclair Oil Building, 55 Liberty Street at the corner of Nassau Street in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City was built in 1909–10 and designed by Henry Ives Cobb in a Gothic Revival style. The limestone building is covered in white architectural terracotta ornamented with birds and alligators and other fanciful subjects.

In the building before Liberty Tower was the New York Evening Post under editor William Cullen Bryant, and the first headquarters of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, established by Henry Bergh in 1867.

President Theodore Roosevelt’s law office was one of Sinclair Oil building’s first commercial tenants. In 1917, an office was leased as cover for German spies seeking to prevent America’s intervention in World War I (“The Great War”). The plot involved an attempt to draw the United States into a diversionary war with Mexico and Japan. The plot was exposed on March 1, 1917, with news reports of an intercepted telegram (“Zimmermann Telegram”), decoded by British cryptographers, prompted President Woodrow Wilson to declare war against Germany a month later. Shortly afterward, the entire building was leased by the Sinclair Oil Company, responsible for the Teapot Dome scandal of 1922.

In 1979, the structure, renamed Liberty Tower, was converted from commercial use into a residential building by architect Joseph Pell Lombardi. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1982, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 15, 1983. Because the then new principles of “skyscraper” design were not yet fully understood, the building was overbuilt, with its steel foundation anchored into bedrock five stories below street level. This overly sturdy construction helped this tall, slender building withstand the collapse of two World Trade Towers only 220 yards to the west on September 11, 2001, with only minimal damage despite the impact which was measured at the time as a 3.3 magnitude seismic event.

Source: Liberty Tower (Manhattan) – Wikipedia

View showing the ornate top. Image source: Manhattan Scout

 

The 23-story pre-war Beresford at 211 Central Park West (CPW) was designed by the architect Emery Roth and completed in 1929. It takes its name from the Hotel Beresford, which had occupied the site since 1889. Roth designed The El Dorado, The San Remo, and The Ardsley, also on CPW.

The Beresford’s mass is relieved by horizontal belt courses, staggered setbacks required by the 1916 Zoning Resolution, which provide some apartments with terraces, and Georgian style detailing. The Beresford sits on the corner and has three octagonal copper-capped corner towers. The view east overlooks Central Park; and the southern view is of Theodore Roosevelt Park, with the American Museum of Natural History. The building is U-shape, with a central court. Each floor originally had 2 apartments of a scale that was eliminated in NYC by the stock market crash and the Multiple Dwellings Law.

The co-op apartments can go for $3 million to $22 million. One unit was listed for $62 million. The building’s residents have included comedian Jerry Seinfeld, actress Glenn Close, singer Diana Ross, tennis player John McEnroe, and actor Tony Randall, to name a few.

• Source: The Beresford – Wikipedia
• Created for Norm’s Thursday Doors April 20, 2017

The Bowery Savings Bank at 130 Bowery between Broome and Grand Streets was designed by Stanford White, from the firm of McKim, Mead, and White, and built in 1893–95. The “L”-shaped building continues through to Elizabeth Street, and has a designed facade at 228 Grand Street.

White’s architectural portfolio includes: The Washington Square Arch, a Fifth Avenue mansion formerly owned by the Rockefeller family, The New York Herald building, The Tiffany building, The Boston Public Library, several branches of The New York Public Library, and The Bowery Savings Bank building which is now a 40,000 square foot space event space and restaurant called Capitale (opened and landmarked in 1980).

In 1906, at one of White’s most recognized buildings, his life was ended. While attending the opening of Madison Square Garden’s roof show, White was shot and killed by the jealous husband of his mistress.

White’s choice of a Roman classical style for the building set a trend for bank buildings. Greek revival temples were built to inspire confidence after the United States economy collapsed in the Panic of 1893. Many people blamed banks for the depression that followed. So, banks built in that era (until the end of the Great Depression) were meant to suggest strength and stability.

The exterior has Corinthian columns and sculpted pediments by Frederic MacMonnies. The interior is reminiscent of a Roman temple with extensive use of marble, mosaic floors, faux marble scagliola columns, coffered ceilings and stairs and cast iron skylights with a glowing amber Venetian glass ceiling set into the 65-foot-high ceiling.

Sources:

• Bowery Savings Bank by New York Architecture
• Bowery Savings bank – Wikipedia

For Norm’s Thursday Doors March 9, 2017

When I went to Sony Square last weekend for a photo shoot we met at the Metropolitan Life North Building, known as Eleven Madison. It is a lovely 30-story art deco skyscraper overlooking Madison Square Park in Manhattan, New York City. The building is connected by an elevated walkway to the Met Life Tower just south of it.

• Read the interesting history: Metropolitan Life North Building – Wikipedia
• More on the history of why it is only 30 stories and not 100 on Untapped Cities: The NYC that Never Was: What The Metropolitan Life Insurance Building Could Have Become

For Norm’s Thursday Doors March 2, 2017

The Decker Building—periodically referred to as the Union Building—is located at 33 Union Square West in Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1892 for the Decker Brothers piano company according to designs by the radical anarchist architect John H. Edelmann, it replaced the earlier Decker Building on the same lot, designed by Leopold Eidlitz and built in 1869.

Andy Warhol had his Factory on the sixth floor of this building from 1968 through 1973. It is also where Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and art critic and curator Mario Amaya in 1968 (Souce: Wikipedia).

I love the ornate facade of this building. The doors are almost hidden. For Norm’s Thursday Doors February 16, 2017