Western Union Telegraph Building
The Western Union Telegraph Building was a building at Dey Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The Western Union Building was built with ten above-ground stories rising 230 feet (70 m). The structure was originally designed by George B. Post, with alterations by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh. It is considered one of the first skyscrapers in New York City.
This article is about the former telegraph headquarters. For the telegraph building in Missouri, see Western Union Telegraph Building, Kansas City, Missouri. For the later Western Union headquarters, see 60 Hudson Street. For the current building on the site, see 195 Broadway.Western Union Building
Destroyed
Office
195 Broadway
New York City
February 1, 1875
1890–1892
1912–1914
230 feet (70 m)
10 (+2 basement, 1 ground story)
Western Union decided to construct the building in 1872 after outgrowing a previous space at 145 Broadway. Post was selected as the winner of an architectural design competition, and the building was completed in February 1875. At the time of its completion, it was one of the tallest structures in New York City, behind only Trinity Church, the New York Tribune Building, and the Brooklyn Bridge towers. The original design contained eleven stories, including the ground story. It had a three-story mansard roof and a clock tower whose pinnacle gave the building its 230-foot height. The interior included executive offices, a large telegraph operating room, and office space that could be rented to other tenants.
The top five stories were destroyed by fire in 1890, although the superstructure of the ground story and the lowest five floors remained intact. Hardenbergh designed a four-story flat-roofed expansion to the structure, completed in 1891. AT&T, which acquired the Western Union Telegraph Building, decided to redevelop the site with a 29-story building at 195 Broadway, which was completed in 1916. The old Western Union Building was demolished between 1912 and 1914, although Western Union continued to occupy the replacement structure until 1930.
Legacy[edit]
The Western Union Building's design received mixed criticism. The magazine The Aldine compared the Western Union Building to a cathedral, given that it was so prominent in the skyline of Lower Manhattan.[15] The New-York Tribune lamented that "for so marked a building a larger site [...] could not have been secured".[112] Alfred J. Bloor, addressing the American Institute of Architects shortly after the building's completion, felt that Post had made a mistake in using light-colored stone for the bands on the facade, as well as criticized the shaft and roof designs. Even so, he also stated his admiration for the design.[11][113][114] Post's involvement in the Western Union Building led Vanderbilt, then Western Union's main stockholder, to contract the design of his Fifth Avenue house to Post, despite the latter's relative inexperience in designing residences.[6] When the upper stories' reconstruction was completed, the Real Estate Record and Guide criticized the new design, saying, "The reconstructed building is now finished architecturally; we were about to say 'completed'; but that it can never be to the end of time. In mathematics, two halves may make a whole, but in architecture, they do not necessarily; and in the example in question most decidedly they do not."[99]
Later reviews also emphasized the building's importance. Architectural writer Winston Weisman stated in 1972 that the "basic principle" of architecture was "dictated by function", which Post "state[d] architecturally in refined form and in an exceptionally tall building where its message could not be missed".[23][115] Stern, writing in 1999, described the building as "a grand corporate monument, one of a handful of important buildings" that followed the completion of the Equitable Building.[1]
The initial structure has been described as one of three influential early skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan, along with the Equitable Life Building and the New York Tribune Building.[116][117] The Tribune and Western Union Buildings are variously cited as being either the first-ever skyscrapers,[118] or the next major skyscrapers after the Equitable Life Building because of their substantial height increase.[119][120] Architectural historian Montgomery Schuyler wrote that the Tribune and Western Union Buildings were "much more visibly than the Equitable the products of the elevator", in reference to the Equitable Life Building's design, which gave it a diminished appearance.[121] The height difference from the Equitable was significant enough to attract attention from media reports such as the Graphic, which had written in 1873 that "the Western Union Building would be the loftiest business structure on Broadway twice the height of the five-story brownstone structure just north of it".[14]
