Gillender Building

The Gillender Building was an early 20-story, 273-foot-tall (83 m)[lower-alpha 1] skyscraper in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It stood on the northwest corner of Wall Street and Nassau Street, on a narrow strip of land along Nassau Street measuring only 26 by 73 feet (7.9 m × 22.3 m). At the time of its completion in 1897, the Gillender Building was, depending on ranking methods, the fourth- or eighth-tallest structure in New York.[1]

Gillender Building
The Gillender Building, seen from the southeast in April 1910; the larger structure on the right is the Hanover Bank Building
General information
StatusDemolished
TypeOffice
LocationNassau Street, Manhattan, New York City
Coordinates40.70757°N 74.01050°W / 40.70757; -74.01050
Construction started1896
Completed1897
Demolished1910
Cost$500,000
OwnerHelen Gillender Asinari
Height
Roof273 ft (83 m)
Technical details
Floor count20
Floor area26 ft × 73 ft (7.9 m × 22.3 m)
Design and construction
ArchitectCharles I. Berg,
Edward H. Clark
Main contractorCharles T. Willis Company

The Gillender Building was designed by Charles I. Berg and Edward H. Clark. Upon completion, it was praised as an engineering novelty, and was quoted by some as "one of the wonders of the city".[2] It attracted attention for its visible disproportion of height and footprint, which commanded a relatively low rentable area and was deemed economically obsolete from the start.[3]

After thirteen years of uneventful existence, the Gillender Building was sold in December 1909 for a record price of $822 per square foot ($8,850/m2) of land,[lower-alpha 2] and was demolished between April and June 1910 to make way for the 41-story Bankers Trust tower at 14 Wall Street. The press referred to the Gillender Building's demolition as the first time when a modern skyscraper was torn down to be replaced with a taller and larger one. At the time, the Gillender Building was the tallest building ever demolished voluntarily.

Site

The Gillender Building stood on the northwest corner of Wall Street and Nassau Street, on a narrow strip measuring 26 feet (7.9 m) on Wall Street and 73 feet (22 m) on Nassau Street.[4][5][lower-alpha 3] The 39-story Bankers Trust tower at 14 Wall Street, built in 1911, occupies both the site of the Gillender Building and the adjoining seven-story Stevens Building at 12-14 Wall Street. Surrounding lots to the north and west were incorporated as part of an annex to 14 Wall Street, built between 1931 and 1933.[6]

In the 17th century, the area north of Wall Street was occupied by John Damen's farm; Damen sold the land in 1685 to captain John Knight, an officer of Thomas Dongan's administration. Knight resold the land to Dongan, and Dongan resold it in 1689 to Abraham de Peyster and Nicholas Bayard. Both de Peyster and Bayard served as Mayors of New York. The first known building on the Gillender Building's site, a sugar house, was built by Samuel Bayard. In 1718, most of the present-day block was sold to a church congregation, while the corner lot, cut into narrow strips, remained in possession of the de Peysters and the Bayards.[lower-alpha 4] In 1773, de Peyster sold the corner lot to the Verplanck family for less than $1,500; the Verplanck mansion later housed Wall Street banks.[2]

The second New York City Hall, later renamed Federal Hall, was erected in 1700 and torn down in 1816.[2] It occupied the eastern side of present-day Nassau Street, on the site of the present-day Federal Hall National Memorial. Though Nassau Street historically curved around City Hall, it was straightened after the demolition of the second City Hall. The street's early route was retained in the placement of the corner buildings (including the Gillender Building but not 14 Wall Street), which were set back from the street, providing a sidewalk that was wider than usual.[2] In 1816, the corner lot was owned by Charles Gardner, who sold the property the next year for $11,200; it was further resold in 1835 for $47,500 and in 1849 for $55,000. Charles Frederick Briggs and Edgar Allan Poe operated the offices of the Broadway Journal on this site from 1844 until 1845.[7] From 1849 until December 1909, the lot remained in the hands of a single family.[2] Adjacent lots were owned by the Sampson family since 1840, and this property was developed into the Stevens Building in 1880.[8]

Design

The Gillender Building was designed by Charles I. Berg and Edward H. Clark. It belonged to "a series of elegant towers in various classical modes erected in New York in the 1890s"[9] and is considered "a notable example" of its period along with the Central Bank Building (William Birkmire, 1897, demolished) and the American Surety Building (Bruce Price, 1894–1896, extant).[9] Berg and Clerk followed the Italian rule of triple vertical partitioning: expensive decoration was limited to the three bottom floors (what the pedestrians see from the street) and the upper two floors and the crowning tower. Massive cornices above the second and third floors visually separated the lower levels from the clean wall surface stretching above up until the fourteenth floor; starting from the ninth floor, it gradually re-acquired ornaments and arched windows as if in anticipation of the ornate Italian Baroque cupola above.[1]

The Gillender Building cost $500,000 to construct[1][10] and attracted attention due to the disproportion of its height and footprint.[11] The new structure occupied 26 by 73 feet (7.9 m × 22.3 m),[5] ruling out efficient space plans. Quicksand under the site required use of foundations made of caisson.[12] These caissons consumed the underground space that could be otherwise used by bank vaults or retail storage, further reducing the building's value.[12] Its rentable area (30,000 square feet or 2,790 square meters) was on par with Manhattan's 1897 average for pre-skyscraper buildings (26,300 square feet or 2,400 square meters) and lower than the area of adjacent six-story Stevens Building.[13] The disproportion was made more evident in 1903, when the new Hanover National Bank Building, built on the same Nassau Street block and being only marginally taller, dwarfed the slender Gillender Building.[4]

Structurally, it was based on fully wind-braced steel frame with masonry infill.[14] The main volume of the tower rose to 219 feet (67 m) without setbacks, with a three-story cupola crown reaching 273 feet (83 m).[14] The New York Times erroneously called the Gillender Building the "highest office structure in the world".[3][10][lower-alpha 5]

Construction

In 1896, Helen L. Gillender Asinari,[lower-alpha 6] owner of a six-story office building on the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, decided to replace it with a 300-foot (91 m) tall tower, capitalizing on a tenfold increase in land value.[11] The building was most likely named after Helen's father, millionaire tobacco merchant Eccles Gillender (1810–1877).[18] According to media, Gillender Asinari had hurried to build the new tower prior to the anticipated enactment of new, stricter building codes, which led to the shortcomings of the building's design,[18][19] even though the regulations did not come into effect until 1916.[18] An alternative version presented by Joseph Korom attributes construction of the Gillender Building to Augustus Teophilus Gillender, principal partner in a law firm,[1] but Gillender Asinari disputed this version, saying that "Mr. Augustus T. Gillender never has had, nor has he now, the slightest interest in the property."[20]

The construction contract was awarded to the Charles T. Willis Company, while Hecla Iron Works, Atlas Cement Company, and the Okonite Company of Passaic were principal suppliers.[14] Advertised as fully fireproof and as the most modern tower on the market,[3] the Gillender Building was occupied by financial firms through its short lifetime and was perceived as economically obsolete from the start.[3] There were no notable incidents other than two lightning strikes in its spire in July 1897 and May 1900; the latter "sent splinters flying in every direction" without casualties.[21]

Takeover
Gillender Building
New York skyline in 1902. Gillender Building in the center, behind the Trinity Church.

In 1909, financial institutions began rapidly expanding their properties within the Financial District. The Bankers Trust Company joined the process after the Bank of Montreal, the Fourth National Bank, and the Germania Life Insurance Company acquired their properties on Wall and Nassau Streets.[8] Bankers Trust, which was established in 1902, had been a tenant at the Gillender Building for six years[22][23] and their choice of site was motivated by its location near the New York Stock Exchange.[22] The company, with J. P. Morgan on the board,[22] grew rapidly and intended to land itself permanently in the "vortex of America's financial life".[24]

In July 1909, Bankers Trust signed a long-term lease agreement with the Sampson family, owners of the Stevens Building;[8] the company preferred leasing over purchasing due to the high price of land on Wall Street.[24] Located on the same block as the Gillender Building, the L-shaped, seven-story Stevens Building wrapped around it and possessed far longer facades on both Wall and Nassau Streets.[8] Initially, the press reported that Bankers Trust planned to build a 16-story office building wrapping around the Gillender Building, with the two bottom floors outfitted to be "one of the finest banking rooms in the city".[8] Later, it was disclosed that the trust had been negotiating purchase of the Gillender Building since April 1909;[11] the deal would have consolidated enough land for a new tower, with a roughly square footprint measuring about 100 by 100 feet (30 by 30 m).[2][lower-alpha 7]

The Manhattan Trust Company, a bank connected to Bankers Trust through common control by J. P. Morgan,[26] acquired the Gillender Building from Helen Gillender Asinari in December 1909, paying approximately $1,500,000 for the 1,825-square-foot (169.5 m2) property (equivalent to $42,683,000 in 2019), or $822 per foot ($2,700/m).[11][19] This was considered a record amount for land in New York City: the previous record was for 1 Wall Street, the land under which had sold for $558.65 per foot ($1,832.8/m).[19] The land had been worth $55,000 sixty years earlier (equivalent to $1,565,000 in 2019).[2] Negotiations had progressed since April 1909 and the sale was virtually closed in November.[11]

On January 2, 1910, the press reported that the Manhattan Trust had resold the building to Bankers Trust, which had completed land acquisition for its large corner property.[6][23] By April 1910, the final cash price paid to Manhattan Trust was adjusted to $1,250,000;[2] in exchange for the $250,000 difference, the Manhattan Trust retained long-term lease rights for the ground floor "and some other space in the building".[23] This brought nominal cash price per foot on par or below the earlier record ($700 per square foot for a lot on the corner of Wall Street and Broadway).[11] Contemporaries agreed that the Manhattan Trust and Bankers Trust acted in accord and that the latter targeted the Gillender Building from the start.[23] Bankers Trust absorbed Manhattan Trust Company in February 1912.[26]

The press anticipated the upcoming demolition of the Gillender Building "as the first time when such a high-class office building representing the best type of fire-proof construction" would be torn down[10] and "one of the largest building operations ever undertaken in New York".[2] Bankers Trust publicized the drafts by Trowbridge & Livingston to build a 39-story[lower-alpha 8] tower that, when announced, would be New York City's third tallest building after the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower and the Singer Building.[2] At the time, the Gillender Building was the tallest building ever demolished voluntarily.[3]

Demolition
Gillender and Stevens buildings (in red) and the Bankers Trust Building that replaced them, looking from the Nassau Street elevation

Demolition of the Stevens Building commenced in the beginning of April 1910.[2] The contract to demolish the Gillender Building was awarded to Jacob Volk, known for his work on the McAdoo Tunnel,[10] who himself claimed experience in demolishing 900 buildings.[27] Initially, Volk subscribed to complete the job in 35 days and pay a $500 penalty for each day delayed.[10] The schedule was later extended to 45 days.[27] The building's tenants remained in the tower until the wrecking crews arrived on-site. Demolition commenced on April 29, 1910,[10][28] and was officially completed June 16, 1910, one day ahead of schedule.[29][28] One journal reported that "...all previous records for rapid work were surpassed" and that "every vestige of [the Gillender Building] had disappeared" by the time work was completed.[28] Another said that the Gillender Building was "only the second high modern building to be taken down", both in the city and in the world, following the Pabst Building in Times Square.[30]

Demolition was preceded with erection of a massive timber canopy over the sidewalks and a wire mesh over the street to protect people from falling debris. Inside, elevator shafts were converted into garbage chutes for the torn partitions and exterior masonry scrap. By May 2, the top belvedere was dismantled completely and most of the cupola masonry was removed, exposing its steel skeleton.[31] The Times said that Volk "strode over busted balustrades like an admiral on his bridge, barking through a megaphone at his crew."[32] By the end of May, most of the Stevens Building was torn down; the Gillender Building's masonry walls were removed down to the seventh floor and steel skeleton was down to eleventh floor.[33] By June 12, all that remained of the Gillender Building was a single level of its steel frame visible above protective scaffolding.[34] In the following four days, the ground was completely cleared; work on its underground foundations commenced a month later.[35]

It cost Bankers Trust $50,000 plus $500 for advance completion; the contractor also received all the scrap, valued at $25,000.[29] The granite slabs from the Gillender Building were recycled into tombstones of the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.[36] Two hundred and fifty men were involved in the demolition project during the daytime, and a hundred during the night.[27] Of these, two Italian workers were injured by falling girders, one of whom subsequently died in the hospital.[3][29] The New York Times described the demolition thus:[29]

The famous Gillender Building, which when erected twelve years ago on the northwest corner of Nassau and Wall Streets was called the tallest skyscraper in the world, its tower rising some 300 feet above the streets, has gone the way of other landmarks

— The New York Times, June 17, 1910[29]

The Bankers Trust Company Building, now known as 14 Wall Street, was completed in 1912, becoming the tallest banking building in the world.[4][25] The bank occupied only the three lower floors; its main operations were housed elsewhere in less expensive offices.[37] In 1931, Bankers Trust acquired and demolished the adjacent Hanover, Astor, and Pine Street Buildings, and replaced them with an annex to the original Bankers Trust Building. The annex was completed in 1933, tripling its rentable area.[4][38]

  • Top floors and spire
  • Higher elevations
  • Midsections
  • Lower sections
  • Final demolition

In media

The Gillender Building is the site of a final scene in Jed Rubenfeld's The Interpretation of Murder, a 2006 novel reconstructing Sigmund Freud's 1909 visit to New York. The narrator and Nora Acton (linked to Freud's case study of Dora) meet for the last time in the Gillender cupola, watch the New York skyline, well aware that the building will be soon torn down.[39]

In M. K. Hobson's Hotel Astarte, The Warlock "had his fingernails polished by a mute Chinese woman he kept in locked in a small room in his office on the top floor of the Gillender Building on Wall Street". The story is set in June 1910 and in October 1929, both after the Gillender Building had already been dismantled.[40]

References

Notes
  1. 17 floors in the main tower volume and three floors in the cupola
  2. $822 per square foot is most quoted figure (Korom 2008, p. 221., Silver 2000, p. 210., The Skyscraper Museum Virtual Archive). Willis 1995, p. 150., provides a marginally different figure of $820 per square foot
  3. Contemporary New York Times articles reported marginally different footprint of 25 by 74 feet (7.6 m × 22.6 m)[2]
  4. See the 18th century map and corresponding notes in The New York Times April 10, 1910.
  5. The Manhattan Life Insurance Building (1894) was taller at 348 feet (106 m).[15][16][17]
  6. Granddaughter of George Lovett, who purchased the site in 1849[2]
  7. The New York Times reported that the two buildings occupied a site measuring 94 feet (29 m) on Wall Street and 102 feet (31 m) on Nassau Street.[10] The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission states that the site measures 97 feet (30 m) on Wall Street and 94 feet (29 m) on Nassau Street.[25]
  8. 32 rentable floors and 7 storage floors in the pyramidal top; two underground bank vault floors and one underground mechanical floor[2]

Citations
  1. Korom 2008, p. 219.
  2. "New Bankers' Trust Company Tower Sets Building and Realty Records" (PDF). The New York Times. April 10, 1910. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
  3. Korom 2008, p. 221.
  4. "Introduction and History of the Bankers Trust". The Skyscraper Museum's Virtual Archive. Retrieved December 31, 2008.
  5. A measurement of 7.6 m × 22.25 m (24.9 ft × 73.0 ft) is given by Whitehand & Larkham 1992, p. 121.
  6. Landmarks Preservation Commission 1997, p. 2.
  7. Wolfe 2008, p. 26.
  8. "New Office Building for Wall Street. Sixteen-Story Structure, Costing $1,500,000, to Go Up on the Stevens Site" (PDF). The New York Times. July 9, 1909. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
  9. Condit, Gary W. "Skyscraper. Part 2. History and development". Grove Art Online / Museum of Modern Art, NY. Retrieved December 31, 2008.
  10. "Skyscraper Going: Higher One Coming. Razing 20-Story Gillender Building to Make Room for 32-Story Bankers' Trust Home". The New York Times. April 30, 1910. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
  11. "$822 a Square Foot, Record Land Price. Sale of Northwest Corner of Wall and Nassau Streets Passes Old $700 Mark" (PDF). The New York Times. December 16, 1909. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
  12. "History of the Bankers Trust. April 1910". The Skyscraper Museum's Virtual Archive. Retrieved December 31, 2008.
  13. Whitehand & Larkham 1992, p. 124.
  14. Korom 2008, p. 220.
  15. Gillender Building at Emporis
  16. Gillender Building at Structurae
  17. "Gillender Building". SkyscraperPage.
  18. Gray, Christopher (June 3, 2000). "Streetscapes/Readers' Questions; Building's Name, Gallery's Photo, Complex's Origin". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
  19. "Record Price for Manhattan Land" (PDF). The Real Estate Record: Real estate record and builders' guide. 84 (2179): 1128. December 18, 1909 – via columbia.edu.
  20. Gillender Asinari, Helen L. (March 10, 1905). "Ownership of Gillender Building". New-York Tribune. p. 8. Retrieved May 4, 2020 – via newspapers.com .
  21. "Bolt Destroys Second Flag Pole Erected in the Same Spot" (PDF). The New York Times. June 1, 1900. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
  22. Ward & Zunz 1992, p. 146.
  23. "Gillender Building Resold" (PDF). The New York Times. January 2, 1910. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
  24. Ward & Zunz 1992, p. 147.
  25. Landmarks Preservation Commission 1997, p. 3.
  26. "Bankers' Absorbs Manhattan" (PDF). The New York Times. February 21, 1912. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
  27. "Breaking Records in House-Wrecking; The 20-Story Gillender Building Fast Coming Down Before the Contractor's Attacks". The New York Times. June 3, 1910. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 22, 2020.
  28. "New Building of the Bankers Trust Company of New York". The Bankers Magazine. American periodical series, 1800-1850. Bradford-Rhodes & Company. 85: 46. 1912.
  29. "Gillender Building Down" (PDF). The New York Times. June 17, 1910. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
  30. "The Third Tallest Tower" (PDF). The Real Estate Record: Real estate record and builders' guide. 85 (2197): 864. April 23, 1910 – via columbia.edu.
  31. "Demolition process: May 5, 1910". The Skyscraper Museum's Virtual Archive. Retrieved December 31, 2008.
  32. Byles, Jeff (January 22, 2006). "The Romance of the Wrecking Ball". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
  33. "Demolition process: May 31, 1910". The Skyscraper Museum's Virtual Archive. Retrieved December 31, 2008.
  34. "Demolition process: June 12, 1910". The Skyscraper Museum's Virtual Archive. Retrieved December 31, 2008.
  35. "Foundation work: July 19, 1910". The Skyscraper Museum's Virtual Archive. Retrieved December 31, 2008.
  36. Silver 2000, p. 210.
  37. Willis 1995, p. 150.
  38. Landmarks Preservation Commission 1997, p. 4.
  39. Rubenfeld, Jed (2006). The Interpretation of Murder. Macmillan. pp. 425–429. ISBN 978-0-312-42705-4.
  40. Hobson, M. K. (June 2007). "Hotel Astarte". Realms of Fantasy. Archived from the original on October 20, 2008.

Sources
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