1971; you can see what I always assumed was some kind of antenna seems to be a derrick on top of the north tower, while the south is catching up
12 Likes
First picture: 1515 Broadway
2 Likes
5 Likes
Old map from sometime in the 1990s. Interestingly the Greek Church site is labeled “One World Plaza” which was a 35-story building set to be finished in 1984 that never came to fruition, and was supposed to be connected to the Bankers Trust Building by bridge. The Goldman Sachs site is also labeled “5WFC”
8 Likes
Is there any renderings of that building?
1 Like
All I’ve seen is from an old NYT article, where it’s described but not shown. It was supposed to be 35 stories, masonry cladded, with banded windows, and connected to Bankers Trust Plaza by bridge. I’d imagine it would be similar to most Battery Park City architecture, maybe with windows like the old 3WTC.
I’d also imagine that the South Bridge was intended to connect to the building. It always seemed strange how the bridge led straight to a parking lot, and that old entrance ramp it had looked awkwardly half-assed.
9 Likes
Unbuilt Skyscraper
7 Likes
For anyone who doesn’t own this book, I highly recommend it: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Built-York-Greg-Goldin/dp/1938922751
4 Likes
John Duncan Phyfe and James Campbell acquired the site in 1883. Phyfe and Campbell announced plans for a nine-story apartment building at the site that October, to be designed by Carl Pfeiffer, and construction on the apartment block began that same year. The builders borrowed over $800,000 from the New York Life Insurance Company, and obtained a second mortgage to John Charles Anderson for a total investment of $2 million. By 1887, after taking three loans from New York Life, Phyfe and Campbell found that they did not have enough funds to complete the apartment block. The extent to which the apartment building was completed before the builders’ bankruptcy is unclear. In February 1888, brothers Eugene M. and Frank Earle entered contract to lease the hotel from Phyfe and Campbell, and furnish it. New York Life concurrently foreclosed on the apartment building, and that September, bought it at public auction for $925,000. Shortly afterward, New York Life decided to remodel the interiors completely, hiring architects McKim, Mead & White to complete the hotel. New York Life leased the hotel to Frederick A. Hammond in 1889, and the Hammond brothers became the operators of the hotel for the next fifteen years. [from Wikipedia]
1890
Plaza Hotel under construction
1910
1928
8 Likes
The Burling Slip Station of New York Steam Corporation. This Station has a capacity of 180000 pounds of steam per hour and supplies hear of the downtown skyscrapers.
mid 1930s
mid 1930s
collection Mackensen
5 Likes
1970, the towers rise
1995 (made my own fixes, other version was lower-res and had bits of the watermark sloppily left in)
Entrance to St. Charlie’s Restaurant at 4 Albany Street, opened around 1973 - used as both a bar and makeshift triage center after 9/11 (taken by Mike Lee)
10 Likes
WOW! It is actually sad that New York had a better skyline in the 1930s than even today, despite it still having the world’s best skyline.
7 Likes
There are no “flat” boxes making the skyline ugly. There are only tapering art-deco masterpieces. They should have never repealed the 1916 zoning law in 1961!
2 Likes
