The Whitehall Building is a three-section residential and office building near the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City, adjacent to Battery Park in lower Manhattan. The original 20-story structure on Battery Place, between West Street and Washington Street, was designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, while the 31-story Whitehall Building Annex on West Street was designed by Clinton and Russell. The original building and annex are both at 17 Battery Place. Another 22-story addition at 2 Washington Street, an International Style building located north of the original building and east of the annex, was designed by Morris Lapidus.
The original Whitehall Building and its annex has a Renaissance Revival style facade, and the two original structures' articulations consist of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column—namely a base, shaft, and capital. Since the building is located on landfill along the Hudson River, its foundation incorporates a non-standard design.
The Whitehall Building is named after the nearby estate of New Amsterdam colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant. The original building was built as a speculative development in 1902–1904 for Robert A. and William H. Chesebrough, a real estate company. The annex was built in 1908–1910, and 2 Washington Street was built in 1972. In 2000, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the Whitehall Building as an official city landmark. The upper floors of the original building and annex were converted to apartments, while the lower floors remain in use as an office building.
Site
The Whitehall Building is located near the southernmost point on Manhattan Island, closer to its western shore. The original building faces West Street to the west, Battery Place to the south, and Washington Street and the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel portal to the east. It is adjacent to the Downtown Athletic Club building at 20 West Street to the north, which occupies the entire width of the block between West and Washington Streets. The annex on West Street and the 2 Washington Street addition each occupy half the width of the block between Washington and West Streets.
The building stands on filled land along the shore of the North River (an archaic name for the southernmost portion of the Hudson River). The surrounding neighborhood, the Financial District, was the first part of Manhattan to be developed as part of New Netherland and later New York City; its population growth led city officials to add land on Manhattan's shore by filling and land reclamation in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the North River shoreline was deeper and had a denser concentration of buildings than the East River shoreline on the east side of Manhattan Island, the land under the Whitehall Building was not filled until 1835, when debris from the Great Fire of New York was dumped there. These filling operations also led to the expansion of Battery Park, directly to the south. The site of the Whitehall Building was first occupied by small landowners who built houses in the area. The surrounding neighborhood became a financial and shipping hub during the late 19th century, and as the Financial District became more densely developed, the residential landowners moved uptown and their former lands were replaced with larger commercial buildings.
Architecture
Original structure and annex
The original structure (also called the Lesser Whitehall or just the Whitehall Building) is a 20-story building on Battery Place. It was designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh, and according to Moses King, had 400 offices. The Whitehall Building's annex, also known as the Whitehall Extension or Greater Whitehall, is a 31-story skyscraper on West Street, north of the original Whitehall Building's western section. Designed by Clinton and Russell, it was the largest office building in New York City at the time of its completion. Both structures contain Renaissance Revival facades with colorful granite, brick, limestone, and architectural terracotta cladding, which in turn was inspired from the sites' highly visible location at the southern tip of Manhattan Island.
Form
The original building measures along Battery Place to the south. Due to the irregular shape of the lot, its western boundary along West Street is long and the eastern boundary on Washington Street is long.