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EQUITABLE BUILDING, 120 Broadway (Aka 104-124 Broadway, 70-84 Cedar Street, 15-25 Nassau Street, and 2-16 Pine Street), Borough of Manhattan

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EQUITABLE BUILDING, 120 Broadway (Aka 104-124 Broadway, 70-84 Cedar Street, 15-25 Nassau Street, and 2-16 Pine Street), Borough of Manhattan Landmarks Preservation Commission June 25, 1996, Designation List 273 LP-1935 EQUITABLE BUILDING, 120 Broadway (aka 104-124 Broadway, 70-84 Cedar Street, 15-25 Nassau Street, and 2-16 Pine Street), Borough of Manhattan. Built 1913-15; architect Ernest R. Graham with Peirce Anderson. Landmark Site: Borough of Manhattan Tax Map Block 47, Lots 1001 and 1002. On September 19, 1995, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the Equitable Building, and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Item No. 5). The hearing had been duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law . Fifteen speakers testified in favor of the proposed designation, including Councilmember Kathryn Freed and representatives of the Downtown Alliance, New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects , Municipal Art Society, New York Landmarks Conservancy, Fine Arts Federation, and Landmarks Committee of Community Board 1. There were no speakers in opposition to designation. The Commission has received several letters and other statements supporting this designation, including a letter from Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger. Summary The Equitable Building, designed by the firm of E.R. Graham, successor to D.H. Burnham & Co., has long been considered a key element in the development and passage of New York's zoning law, the first in the country. Though never the tallest, it was on its completion in 1915 the largest office building in the world, replacing the ~ riginal headquarters of Equitable Life Assurance Company, itself a pioneering early skyscraper of 1868-70. The H-shaped superstructure above a six-story base rises approximately 38 stories straight up from the lot-line with no setbacks. Peirce Anderson, of Ernest R. Graham's firm , gave the enormous structure a Beaux-Arts ornamental treatment that emphasizes Roman classical detail at the base and top . Intended as one of the finest office buildings of its era, the Equitable Building was notable for its advanced elevator system and its fireproof construction. Its bulk and massing became extremely controversial, even before the building's completion, when neighboring institutions and building owners tried to block its construction. Although not the only building responsible for the establishment of zoning, the Equitable became the prime example cited of the evils of unregulated skyscraper construction, as hearings progressed on what ultimately became the city's new Zoning Resolution. While the original Equitable Building at 120 Broadway heralded the beginning of America's development of the skyscraper, its successor heralded the end of most unregulated skyscraper growth. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS The Equitable Life Assurance Co. 1 of Cedar Street. (Fig. 1) Designed by Gilman & Founded in 1859 by Henry Baldwin Hyde, the Kendall and George B. Post, and built in 1868-70, Equitable Life Assurance Society was one of a it was on a grander scale than previous office number of insurance companies that grew into buildings and rose to a height about 142 feet enormous businesses in the second half of the (twice the height of an average commercial nineteenth century.2 Though Hyde founded the building), by making use of iron-cage construction, company at age 25, as a shoe-string operation in a passenger elevators, and lightweight fireproof tiny office, Equitable grew phenomenally in the building materials. A financial success and a decades after the Civil War, becoming in 1886 the public relations triumph, the Equitable Building largest life insurance company in the world. In proved the viability of the tall office building, and that year, Equitable took in over $111.5 million in today is considered a major breakthrough in the new policies, and counted over $41 J .7 million in development of the skyscraper. 6 outstanding coverage. Much of this success By 1875, New York had two other skyscrapers stemmed from Equitable's many innovations. The besides the Equitable: the Tribune Building (1873- company offered the first "incontestable life" 75, Richard Morris Hunt, demolished) at 260 feet insurance policies; issued what has been called and the Western Union Building (1872-75, George "the first modern group insurance policy";3 and B. Post, demolished) at 230 feet. Beginning about moved aggressively into international markets, 1879, after a hiatus in construction following the including by 1900 almost 100 countries. Among financial panic of 1873, there was a general more general business innovations, Hyde is movement to replace older commercial palaces credited with inventing "the American sales with larger elevator buildings, including a convention. "4 significant number of new buildings for the Hyde died in 1899, succeeded in the insurance industry. 7 In 1893, a guidebook writer presidency by James W. Alexander. Allegations observed that "the life corporations have been of conflicts of interest in the insurance industry led among the prime causes of the city's architectural to the 1905 "Armstrong hearings" by the New growth, for the life insurance buildings of New York State legislature, which resulted in changed York surpass the office structures of any city in insurance practices. Equitable survived and the world. " 8 Factors that caused the insurance continued to grow. A fire in 1912 destroyed the industry to take the lead in the drive for height company's Broadway headquarters, but duplicates included the companies' need to find outlets for of records had been made, and the company was their large capital reserves, their openness to able to regroup. By 1959, Equitable boasted innovation, and their recognition of the public assets of $9.5 billion, with policies worth a total of relations value of a prominent and handsome home $33. 25 billion. The company continues today as office building that would "establish in the public one of the world 's largest insurance companies. mind not only [the individual company's] name but also a favorable impression of its operations. "9 New York Skyscrapers and the Rivalry between insurance companies often Insurance Companies of Lower Broadway5 manifested itself in architectural terms. 10 Life insurance companies were among the first As skyscrapers increased in size, architects and most prominent builders of skyscrapers. The had to grapple with the implications for style and core of the New York financial district design. By the late 1880s, designers of tall traditionally had been the intersection of Broad and buildings had turned to a tripartite base-shaft­ Wall Streets. By the time of the Civil War, capital scheme that was flexible enough to remain several banks and insurance companies had moved useful and popular for several decades . This to new buildings on Broadway and on side streets tripartite scheme was from ten to twenty stories immediately to the north of Wall Street. These high and was expressed on one major facade and buildings were commercial palaces -- richly sometimes a second facade for corner buildings. 11 decorated, Renaissance-inspired, multi-story Even as the base-shaft-capital type continued commercial buildings. The first building to break to dominate office-building design, a new type with this tradition was the first headquarters built emphasizing the tower aspect of tall buildings for Equitable Life at 120 Broadway on the corner began to develop in response to the design 2 requirements of still taller structures. At the turn extravagant. 13 Possibly the recent spotlight on of the twentieth century, a series of romantically insurance practices made such an undertaking designed tower buildings rose in Manhattan, each undesirable for publicity purposes. successively claiming the title of tallest building in the world: the Singer Building (Ernest Flagg, Coleman Du Pont and Louis J. Horowitz 1906-08; demolished), a Beaux-Arts style office Though 120 Broadway continued to be the building with a tower addition; the Metropolitan address of the Equitable Life Assurance Life Insurance Company tower (Napoleon LeBrun Company's headquarters, the new building on the & Sons, 1907-09; a designated New York City site was built not by Equitable, but by General landmark), modeled on an Italian campanile; and Thomas Coleman Du Pont (1863-1930), who the Gothic-style Woolworth Building (Cass formed a complicated financial partnership with Gilbert, 1911-13; a designated New York City the Equitable company to sponsor a speculative landmark) . venture. Du Pont, of Delaware's Du Pont dynasty, was The New Equitable Building president of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company The new Equitable Building was designed and until he retired at age 50 in 1914. As early as built shortly after the completion of the Singer, 1910, however, he had begun to invest in New Metropolitan Life, and Woolworth buildings. York businesses, including the McAlpin Hotel at Unlike those, however, it took the form not of a Broadway and West 34th Street. 14 slender, romantic tower but rather of a bulky mass Through his interest in the McAlpin, Du Pont rising straight up from the lot line, following the met builder Louis J. Horowitz, president of the older "base-shaft-capital" office buildings. The Thompson-Starrett Company, which was one of difference resulted at least in part from the New York City's foremost construction firms . different interests and intentions of the building's Horowitz and Frank M . Andrews, architect of the creators. Rather than being built to serve as a McAlpin, met with Du Pont to discuss the corporate symbol and headquarters to the design of potential of Du Pont's buying and developing the a major architect, 120 Broadway was built as a 120 Broadway site. 15 speculative venture for a newcomer to the New Eventually Du Pont agreed to invest in the York building scene and designed by an project, along with Horowitz and Andrews, buying architectural office in flux following the death of the site in October 1912 for $13.5 million.
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