16. International Mercantile Marine Company Building
AKA: United States Lines Building; Washington Building
Location: 1 Broadway
Built: 1883-1884; reclad 1919-1921
Architects: Edward H. Kendall (1883-1884); Walter B. Chambers (1919-1921)
National Register Number: 91000108
Listed: March 2, 1991
Visited: August 18, 2007
The big plaque on the corner of this building says:
Adjoining this site was the first Dutch fort on Manhattan Island, known as Fort New Amsterdam.
OK, let's stop here for a second. Fort Amsterdam was the giant four-pointed star on the earliest maps of New York. It was there at the founding of New Amsterdam, a settlement of a couple hundred, and it changed hands several times in the dizzying back-and-forth between the Dutch and the English and the Americans (not to mention Jacob Leisler) before demolition in 1790. More about the this site when I do the entry for the U.S. Customs House. Onward...
The first house was erected here before 1664.
Sort of a vague fact, this. The Castello Plan shows the site with a house and farm four years earlier, in 1660. 1664 might've been used because that was the year the British seized New Amsterdam from the Dutch and renamed it New York, and originally the date enshrined on the city flag and seal.
In 1771 Captain Archibald Kennedy built here his residence which was used in 1776 by General Washington as his headquarters...
Well, this place and like a thousand others during the Revolutionary War: Washington moved around a lot.
and later by General Howe during the British occupation. It was later used as a hotel.
OK, adaptive re-use, can't front on that.
It was replaced by the Washington Building...
Now this blows my mind. Did anybody in 1881 complain about this? Didn't it irk people that somebody razed a site with a clear historical connection to The Father of Our Country and replaced it with an an office building? And that in some kind of sick joke, the new building was named after Washington? Well, OK, the idea of historic preservation is still a bit avant-garde at this point. And I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by the freakish naming -- I come from the suburbs, and there's a long-running joke that suburban housing developments are always named after the things they destroy: Shady Grove, Cedar Creek, Whispering Pines, Tasty Meadows, and so on.
Jokes aside, the replacement was actually rather fine. A picture in King's Handbook of New York City 1892 shows a brick feast of mansards, cupolas, and corner bay windows gaping southward. The views must've been a key selling point; King's book also includes thrilling panoramas taken from the building of Battery Park and the Harbor, as well as a somewhat less edifying view of industrial buildings and tenements facing north.
which was transformed in 1920-1921 into this building for occupancy by its owners the International Mercantile Marine Company and known as NO.1 BROADWAY.
"Transformed." Sounds absolutely magical, doesn't it? It was reclad in limestone and largely de-ornamented, that's all, and as such, it's largely not much to look at, though they did think to include seals of the cities the IMMC serviced at the time. I like that. (The U.S. Customhouse across the street has something like that, too, though it features scultpural personifications of great port cities and the continents.)
Oh, and the IMMC owned the Titanic.
Location: 1 Broadway
Built: 1883-1884; reclad 1919-1921
Architects: Edward H. Kendall (1883-1884); Walter B. Chambers (1919-1921)
National Register Number: 91000108
Listed: March 2, 1991
Visited: August 18, 2007
The big plaque on the corner of this building says:
Adjoining this site was the first Dutch fort on Manhattan Island, known as Fort New Amsterdam.
OK, let's stop here for a second. Fort Amsterdam was the giant four-pointed star on the earliest maps of New York. It was there at the founding of New Amsterdam, a settlement of a couple hundred, and it changed hands several times in the dizzying back-and-forth between the Dutch and the English and the Americans (not to mention Jacob Leisler) before demolition in 1790. More about the this site when I do the entry for the U.S. Customs House. Onward...
The first house was erected here before 1664.
Sort of a vague fact, this. The Castello Plan shows the site with a house and farm four years earlier, in 1660. 1664 might've been used because that was the year the British seized New Amsterdam from the Dutch and renamed it New York, and originally the date enshrined on the city flag and seal.
In 1771 Captain Archibald Kennedy built here his residence which was used in 1776 by General Washington as his headquarters...
Well, this place and like a thousand others during the Revolutionary War: Washington moved around a lot.
and later by General Howe during the British occupation. It was later used as a hotel.
OK, adaptive re-use, can't front on that.
It was replaced by the Washington Building...
Now this blows my mind. Did anybody in 1881 complain about this? Didn't it irk people that somebody razed a site with a clear historical connection to The Father of Our Country and replaced it with an an office building? And that in some kind of sick joke, the new building was named after Washington? Well, OK, the idea of historic preservation is still a bit avant-garde at this point. And I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by the freakish naming -- I come from the suburbs, and there's a long-running joke that suburban housing developments are always named after the things they destroy: Shady Grove, Cedar Creek, Whispering Pines, Tasty Meadows, and so on.
Jokes aside, the replacement was actually rather fine. A picture in King's Handbook of New York City 1892 shows a brick feast of mansards, cupolas, and corner bay windows gaping southward. The views must've been a key selling point; King's book also includes thrilling panoramas taken from the building of Battery Park and the Harbor, as well as a somewhat less edifying view of industrial buildings and tenements facing north.
which was transformed in 1920-1921 into this building for occupancy by its owners the International Mercantile Marine Company and known as NO.1 BROADWAY.
"Transformed." Sounds absolutely magical, doesn't it? It was reclad in limestone and largely de-ornamented, that's all, and as such, it's largely not much to look at, though they did think to include seals of the cities the IMMC serviced at the time. I like that. (The U.S. Customhouse across the street has something like that, too, though it features scultpural personifications of great port cities and the continents.)
Oh, and the IMMC owned the Titanic.
Labels: Battery Park, Edward H. Kendall, Financial District, Walter B. Chambers
posted by Michael at
2:07 PM
1 Comments:
My 10th great grandfather was a thatcher and defended the Fort in 1648. They were paid in wampum for keeping the traveling preachers. I also have Lenape ancestors from North Jersey. Thanks for the article.
Post a Comment
<< Home