About This Blog

New Yorkers are notorious for rushing through our streets, heads down, all too often oblivious to the beauty and history of the buildings around us. This blog aims to explore some of those buildings, from the famous landmarks to unknown gems. Hopefully your interest will be piqued, and the next time you're walking down a NY street you'll take time to stop and look up.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

26 Broadway

Walk past 26 Broadway and you'll notice a plain facade currently housing an HSBC bank branch.
Cross the street and look back and you'll see it rises into a strong, handsome building.
Pass through Bowling Green Park, turn around, and look up and you'll finally see 26 Broadway in all it's grandeur...  A mighty fortress-meets-temple that was home to John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company.
I've always loved this building because to me it seems like several buildings in one.  Or some sort of organic stone structure that sprouts new floors, wings, and towers at will.  Or a real-life Tetris game where different shaped blocks fell on top of each other.
But the seemingly randomness of it makes sense because Standard Oil's headquarters was built in many installments over 40 years.  The original building built in 1885 had 10-stories. In 1895, six stories were added and a 27-foot-wide extension was made on its north side. After World War Ithe company decided to greatly expand the structure by buying all four of its neighboring buildings on the block; and to either demolish them or extensively renovate them so that the new building looked like one.  Then, it was extensively overhauled in 1921-1928, when it reached further skyward and was crowned with a pyramid.

The pyramid is modeled on the Mausoleum of Maussollos and its tip was originally illuminated as a beacon for ships entering the harbor.  It also reflects the provisions of the 1916 Building Zone Resolution which mandated set-backs at the upper stories of tall buildings in order to control density, air, and light. 
The building's distinctive shape was also dictated by the irregular pentagonal parcel of land it was built on at the southern portion of the block bounded by Broadway, Beaver Street, New Street, and Exchange Place. The sweeping Broadway facade follows the curve of Broadway.
However, the designers were more concerned with the tower as an element in the city's skyline, not as a local form. It is therefore aligned with the uptown street grid, and appears off-kilter to the rest of the building and winding streets of the Financial District.
While you need to view the building from a distance to appreciate it's unique structure, you'll also want to come up close to its limestone facade to see some of the beautiful architectural details.
A lot of the building's ornamentation incorporates an iconographic system that includes the "SO" cipher for Standard Oil...
A bird with flowers and fruit in the spandrel panel...
What looks like cornucopia...
A dragon...
Another sort of dragon...
My favorite piece of ornamentation is this clock mounted in the pediment above a secondary entrance...
It looks so delicate and so strong at the same time...
The main entrance is filled with more symbolic ornamentation including corporate iconography of tripled torches merging into a single flame...
All in all, the Standard Oil Building is a pretty interesting structure a definitely worth a pause and "look up" next time you pass.



1 comment:

  1. Thsi is amazing! I especially love the curvature of the building; I had no idea that it followed the grid of the street. The clock is also one of my favorites...

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