As noted on other postings New York City has a plethora of skyscrapers, many that have been built in the last 50 years that are massive glass boxes.
Prior to that the buildings were built with much more style. This posting looks at some of the architectural and artistic details of those early skyscrapers.
The Corbin Building is at Broadway and John Street in lower Manhattan. Dating from 1889, it was built in the Romanesque Revival style with French Gothic details. It was restored in 2014 by the MTA as part of the Fulton Subway station complex.
The Woolworth Building was completed in 1912 as the world’s tallest building, at 792 feet high. The exterior is limestone colored, glazed Terra Cotta panels.
The Woolworth Building is built in a Gothic style, with it’s impressive crown visible still above most of the buildings in the city.
The Equitable Building is a massive structure on lower Broadway. It has been credited (or cited) as the reason for the 1916 set back law to allow light and air to reach the streets, as this building goes 40 floors straight up from the sidewalk.
With this density it provides 1.2 million square feet of office space on a plot of less than 1 acre.
The Equitable Building does provides this impressive eagle.
The sculptures above the New York Stock Exchange Building. The original sculptures from 1904 were replaced in 1936 as they were too heavy and were causing cracking in the building.
The theme of this sculpture is to show that money is not the root of all evil, rather it is required for the betterment of man.
The buildings along Beekman Street show the contrast to the new Frank Gehry 76 story ‘twisted’ skyscraper.
Surrogate’s Courthouse, completed in 1907
A sculpture outside of the Custom’s House on Bowling Green.
Rockefeller Center provides numerous reliefs and sculptures including these two.
The French Building on Fifth Avenue in Midtown has an impressive entrance.
A contrast of style along East 42nd Street.
The Brunswick Building is on Fifth Avenue at 27th Street. Completed in 1906 is has served as a hotel, a warehouse and a sales showroom for gift wholesalers, thus earning the unofficial name as the New York Gift Building.
It is now luxury apartments.
The famed Flatiron Building. Everyone takes a photo of the narrow front section, this is the side section.
Clearly it does not have central air conditioning.
A detail on the Flatiron.
A close up of the Met Life clock.
The Met Life Building crown.
The classic art deco – with the ubiquitous eagle. There are eagles on nearly all the older skyscrapers.
Another contrasting styles view.
70 Pine Street – Completed in 1932. The top area of the building was once an observation deck.
Detail of a building along Broadway near Trinity Church.
Cascading cornices in downtown Manhattan.
The very cool American Express building.
Another sculpture in front of the Customs House.
Cunard Lines building – note the ships.
The new buildings like the World Trade Center are great, but nothing beats the detail on the early 1900s skyscrapers.
RDZ Photography 