The Western Union Telegraph Building was a building at Dey Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The Western Union Building was built with ten above-ground stories rising . The structure was originally designed by George B. Post, with alterations by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh. It is considered one of the first skyscrapers in New York City.
Western Union decided to construct the building in 1872 after outgrowing a previous space at 145 Broadway. Post was selected as the winner of an architectural design competition, and the building was completed in February 1875. At the time of its completion, it was one of the tallest structures in New York City, behind only Trinity Church, the New York Tribune Building, and the Brooklyn Bridge towers. The original design contained eleven stories including the ground story. It contained a three-story mansard roof and a clock tower whose pinnacle gave the building its 230-foot height. The interior included executive offices, a large telegraph operating room, and office space that could be rented to other tenants.
The top five stories were destroyed by fire in 1890, although the superstructure of the ground story and lowest five floors remained intact. Hardenbergh designed a four-story flat-roofed expansion to the structure, which was completed in 1891. AT&T, which acquired the Western Union Telegraph Building, decided to redevelop the site with a 29-story building at 195 Broadway, which was completed in 1916. The old Western Union Building was demolished between 1912 and 1914, although Western Union continued to occupy the replacement structure until 1930.
Site
The Western Union Building was at the northwestern corner of Broadway and Dey Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The building originally occupied along Broadway to the east and along Dey Street to the south. The rear boundary of the site, on the west, was slightly wider at about . The site initially took up five land lots in total: three on Broadway, each measuring , and two on Dey Street, each measuring . Dey Street sloped downward away from Broadway, so that while the basement was half a level below Broadway, it was at the same level as Dey Street at the western end of the site. When the Western Union Building was renovated in 1890, an additional lot on Dey Street was acquired for the expansion, measuring .
Architecture
The Western Union Building was originally designed by architect George B. Post and opened as the headquarters of Western Union in 1875. The Western Union Building was designed in the Neo-Grec style with Beaux-Arts influences, although at the time of its construction, the style was characterized as French Renaissance. Numerous contractors provided material for the original building. After the structure was severely damaged in an 1890 fire, it was rebuilt in 1892 to designs by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh.
The building was ten stories tall (including a half-story attic), rising to a height of at the tip of its clock tower. The height of the outer walls, below the mansard roof, was . The ground story was considered a fully raised basement, and the floor numbering started above the ground story. The clock tower made the Western Union Building one of the tallest structures in New York City, after Trinity Church, the New York Tribune Building, and the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge. At the time of the Western Union Building's completion, the city's tallest buildings were typically not taller than six stories, and church spires only rose to nine stories. This was attributed to the fact that the elevator was still a relatively new technology.
Facade
The articulation originally consisted of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column (namely a base, shaft, and capital). The granite blocks used in the structure came from Quincy, Massachusetts, and Richmond, Virginia, while the brick came from Baltimore. Above the base, the spandrels between the windows on each floor were recessed between the vertical piers, which separated the facades into bays. On the Broadway facade, the second and fifth piers from south were designed to be wider, thereby supporting the clock tower and mansard roof above. In general, the ornamentation of the Western Union Building was generally not as prominent as its main structural features.