The Rise of the Skyscraper City Symposium at the Skyscraper Museum

H-Announce The Rise of the Skyscraper City Symposium at The Skyscraper Museum

Announcement published by Emma Thomas on Friday, February 17, 2017 Type: Symposium Date: March 9, 2017 to March 10, 2017 Location: New York, United States Subject Fields: Architecture and Architectural History, Local History, Urban History / Studies

MARCH 9 & 10, 2017

Symposium at The Skyscraper Museum

The Rise of the Skyscraper City: All the Tall Buildings in Manhattan, 1874-1900

In conjunction with its current exhibition TEN & TALLER, 1874-1900, The Skyscraper Museum presents a symposium that explores new narratives of the first decades of high-rise history. Organized into four sessions, onThursday evening, March 9 and on Friday morning and afternoon, March 10, the symposium brings together a range of scholars and authors who have studied nineteenth-century New York from the perspectives of architecture, engineering, and urban history.

New York’s first “skyscrapers” were erected in 1874, initiating the city’s ascent into the vertical. The all-masonry Tribune and Western Union buildings were ten-story office buildings that lifted their decorative towers to 260 and 230 feet. By 1900, the steel skeleton of the 30-story Park Row Building – tallest in the world–topped out at 391 feet.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, Manhattan added 250 buildings of ten or more stories – more than triple the number of Chicago. Elevators and new methods of construction enabled this rise, but it was the phenomenal growth of the city itself, whose population swelled from less than a million in the 1870s to more than 3.4 million in 1900, that drove New York into its vertical expansion.

In particular, the symposium will explore a new narrative of “All vs. Tall” that considers other uses beyond office buildings, including apartments, hotels, and lofts, and emphasizes the commercial motive of high-rise development. The comprehensive survey of every building in Manhattan of 10 or more stories from 1874 through 1900 that is the subject of the TEN & TALLER exhibition and the three interfaces – the GRID, the MAP, and the TIMELINE – offer new ways of viewing the architectural and urban development of the period that will be a focus of our symposium.

Citation: Emma Thomas. The Rise of the Skyscraper City Symposium at The Skyscraper Museum. H-Announce. 02-17-2017. https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/167611/rise-skyscraper-city-symposium-skyscraper-museum Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Announce

THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 9 Session 1 5:00 – 8:00 The Skyscraper Museum, 39 Battery Place

The symposium begins at 5:00 with a tour of the exhibition TEN & TALLER by curatorCarol Willis that explains in detail the premise of the show to visualize and map all buildings in the survey by year, use, and location. After the one-hour tour, there will be a break before the first seated session, which begins at 6:30.

6:30 – 8:00 All vs. Tall: Manhattan, 1874-1900 (1.5 LUs)

After a brief talk by Carol Willis that illustrates some of the buildings and themes that have formed the standard histories of the high-rise and the different approach of the TEN & TALLER survey, a group of the symposium’s invited speakers will engage in a conversation about their research and new ways of viewing the architectural and urban history of New York in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Donald Friedman, Lee Gray, Kathryn Holliday, Andrew Alpern, and Thomas Mellins will consider some of the major changes in the design and construction of tall buildings, the impact of new technologies such as electricity and telephones, and the rise of multi- family dwellings and hotels. The discussion will identify issues to be explored in the Friday sessions.

Free for members, $10 for non-members 1.5 LUs available

Reservations are required for each session.Click here to RSVP to Session 1or RSVP to [email protected] with the subject Session 1. Seating priority is given to Members, Corporate Member firms and their employees. All guests MUST RSVP to assure admittance.

FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 10 SESSION 2: 10:00 – 12:00 The Skyscraper Museum, 39 Battery Place Re-framing the Debate over the “First Skyscrapers” Tall Building Construction in New York vs. Chicago, 1883-1900

Two professors of structural engineering and historic preservation who have researched and published extensively on the beginnings of metal-frame construction in New York and Chicago revisit the partisan debate over definitions of the “first skyscrapers.” New Yorker Donald Friedman, author of Historical Building Construction, and Thomas Leslie, author of Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871-1934, will discuss the introduction and adoption of steel skeletons in the practice of construction in the 19th century’s two leading skyscraper cities.

The session is framed as a mock “debate” only to emphasize the historiography of the bi-city competition. The real intent of the session is to develop a new and more nuanced narrative of the transition from masonry to metal-frame construction in the last decades of the 19th century.

Free for members, $10 for non-members 2 LUs available

Reservations are required for each session.Click here to RSVP to Session 2or RSVP to [email protected] with the subject Session 2. Seating priority is given to Members, Corporate Member firms and their employees. All guests MUST RSVP to assure admittance.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 10 SESSION 3: 1:00 – 3:00 (2 LUs) This program is held at the Cornell AAP facility at 26 Broadway, 20th Floor

New York’s First Skyscrapers: When, Where, & Why?

Why did some office buildings and apartment houses begin to get taller in the mid-1870s and the early-1880s, respectively? Where did developers build and why? How did corporations design buildings for their needs, as well as for profit?

Speakers in the first Friday afternoon session will address these and other issues, from the introduction of elevators to telephone technology, as well as the cooperative movement in residential architecture.

1:00 - 1:10 Introductions by Carol Willis

1:10 - 1:40 Riding High in the Age of Masonry: Elevators in Office Buildings, 1870-1875

Lee Gray, Prof. of Architectural History, School of Architecture at UNC Charlotte

1:40 - 2:10 Vertical Expansion: Telephone Infrastructure and Density in the Urban Market

Kathryn Holliday, Assoc. Prof. of Architectural History, School of Architecture, University of Texas Arlington

2:10 - 2:30 Uptown Apartments: Layout Planning for Extra Height

Andrew Alpern, Independent scholar

2:30 - 3:00 Questions and Colloquy

Free, 2 LUs available

Reservations are required for each session.Click here to RSVP to Session 3or RSVP to [email protected] with the subject Session 3. Seating priority is given to Members, Corporate Member firms and their employees. All guests MUST RSVP to assure admittance.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 10 SESSION 4: 3:30 – 5:30 (2 LUs) This program is held at the Cornell AAP facility at 26 Broadway, 20th Floor

The Rise of the Skyscraper City

The second Friday afternoon session will continue to explore new narratives on nineteenth-century New York. Speakers will focus on lesser-studied typologies of commercial architecture, hotels and lofts, and on the extraordinary importance of Broadway as a high-value corridor, made visible by the Ten & Taller survey.

3:30 - 3:40 Introductions by Carol Willis

3:40 - 4:00 Hotels: Big and Tall

Tom Mellins, architectural historian and independent curator

4:00 - 4:20 Broadway: The Tallest Street in the City

Michelle Young, Adjunct Professor, Columbia, GSAPP and founder of Untapped Cities.

4:20 - 4:40 Lofty Lofts and the Broadway Bridge to Midtown

Carol Willis, Director, The Skyscraper Museum

4:40 – 4:50 Response and Comment

Fran Leadon, Assoc. Prof., School of Architecture at the City College of New York

5:00 – 5:30 Questions and Colloquy

All symposium speakers

Free, 2 LUs available

Reservations are required for each session.Click here to RSVP to Session 4or RSVP to [email protected] with the subject Session 4. Seating priority is given to Members, Corporate Member firms and their employees. All guests MUST RSVP to assure admittance.

Contact Email: [email protected] URL: http://skyscraper.org/symposium.html