Decker Building | |
Location | 33 Union Square West, New York, New York |
---|---|
Coordinates | 40°44′12″N73°59′27″W / 40.7368°N 73.9908°W |
Built | 1893 |
Architect | John H. Edelmann |
Architectural style | Late 19th and early 20th century American movements |
NRHP reference No. | 03001179 [1] |
NYCL No. | 1538 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | November 21, 2003 |
Designated NYCL | July 12, 1988 |
The Decker Building (also the Union Building) is a commercial building located at 33 Union Square West in Manhattan, New York City. The structure was completed in 1892 for the Decker Brothers piano company, and designed by John H. Edelmann. [2] From 1968 to 1973, it served as the location of the artist Andy Warhol's studio, The Factory. [3] The Decker Building was designated a New York City landmark in 1988, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
The building is only 33 feet (10 m) wide and 138 feet (42 m) deep on a lot that goes back 150 feet (46 m). [4] It has a right of way to 16th Street from the rear of the building. The style of the building mixes influences from Venice and Islamic traditions. There are numerous terra cotta details on the façade which remain today. There was a minaret on the roof which disappeared before World War II.
The building was valued at $285,000 in 1913, after which it was traded to settle debts. [5]
The structure was built in 1892 for the Decker Brothers piano company according to designs by the radical anarchist architect John H. Edelmann, working out of the offices of Alfred Zucker. It replaced the earlier Decker Building on the same lot, designed by Leopold Eidlitz and built in 1869. [2]
On November 25, 1950, 27 year old Abraham Yeager was killed when a one-ton piece of cornice from the Decker Building collapsed onto the sidewalk where Yeager was walking. [6]
In 1967, artist Andy Warhol had to move his Factory from East 47th Street after the previous building was torn down. Union Square at the time was a rundown neighborhood, but Paul Morrissey had found the loft, in the Decker Building, and Warhol agreed to move there. While Morrissey was stripping wood at the Factory, a young man named Jed Johnson delivered Western Union telegram in 1968. Morrissey hired him on the spot to help out with the refinishing of the space. [7] Johnson subsequently moved in with Warhol and became his longtime partner. [8]
On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas visited the Factory to look for Warhol, who she felt was taking control of her screenplay away from her. She then shot Warhol three times, seriously wounding him, as well as art critic and curator Mario Amaya. [9] [3] The Factory previously had an open door policy, meaning that anybody could enter. However, following the shooting, Johnson installed a Dutch door and built a wall around the elevator, requiring guests to buzz in. [10]
Around 1970, Warhol had a video camera system built to tape his visitors and document the activities around the studio. [11] In 1973, Warhol moved the Factory to 860 Broadway, a short distance away, and created the Warhol Time Capsules while packing up. [12]
The building was completely refurbished into apartments by Joseph Pell Lombardi in 1995. [13] In 2015, Dylan's Candy Bar opened a ground-floor storefront in the building, [14] which closed in 2021. [15]
Paul Morrissey is an American film director, known for his early association with Andy Warhol. His most famous films include Flesh, Trash (1970), Heat, Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974), all starring Joe Dallesandro, 1971's Women in Revolt and the 1980's New York trilogy Forty Deuce (1982), Mixed Blood and Spike of Bensonhurst (1988).
Edith Minturn Sedgwick Post was an American actress, model, and socialite, who was one of Andy Warhol's superstars, starring in several of his short films during the 1960s. Her prominence led to her being dubbed an "It Girl", while Vogue magazine named her a "Youthquaker".
Warhol superstars were a clique of New York City personalities promoted by the pop artist Andy Warhol during the 1960s and early 1970s. These personalities appeared in Warhol's artworks and accompanied him in his social life, epitomizing his dictum, "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes". Warhol would simply film them, and declare them "superstars".
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in Manhattan, New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities, and Warhol's superstars. The original Factory was often referred to as the Silver Factory. In the studio, Warhol's workers would make silkscreens and lithographs under his direction.
Flesh is a 1968 American film directed by Paul Morrissey and starring Joe Dallesandro as a hustler working on the streets of New York City. It highlights various Warhol superstars, in addition to being the film debuts of both Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling. Also appearing are Geraldine Smith as Joe's wife and Patti D'Arbanville as her lover.
Women in Revolt is a 1971 American satirical film produced by Andy Warhol and directed by Paul Morrissey. It was initially released as Andy Warhol's Women. The film stars Jackie Curtis, Candy Darling, and Holly Woodlawn, three trans women and superstars of Warhol's Factory scene. It also features soundtrack music by John Cale.
66th Street is a crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan with portions on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side connected across Central Park via the 66th Street transverse. West 66th Street is notable for hosting the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts between Broadway and Columbus Avenue.
The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin is an Episcopal Anglo-Catholic church in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, which is part of the Episcopal Diocese of New York of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. The church complex is located in the heart of Times Square at 133-145 West 46th Street, with other buildings of the complex at 136-144 West 47th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. It is colloquially known as "Smoky Mary's" because of the amount of incense used in the services.
The Church of St. Vincent Ferrer is a Catholic parish in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1918 by the Dominicans; the attached priory serves as the headquarters of the Eastern United States Province of the order. Its architecture has some unusual features: above the front entrance is one of the few statues of the Crucifixion on the exterior of an American Catholic church; and inside, the Stations of the Cross depict Christ with oil paintings instead of statuary or carvings. It has two Schantz pipe organs. The church building, at the corner of Lexington Avenue and East 66th Street in the Lenox Hill section of the Upper East Side, has been called "one of New York's greatest architectural adornments."
John H. Edelmann (1852–1900) was a socialist-anarchist who worked as an architect in the office of Alfred Zucker, a successful commercial architect of the 1880s and 1890s in New York City. As an architect, Edelmann's sole surviving monument is the former headquarters of the Decker Brothers Piano Company, the Decker Building (1893), at 33 Union Square West, New York. Louis Sullivan was influenced by his work with Edelmann and credits Edelmann's concept of "suppressed function" with the inspiration for his maxim, "Form follows function," a watchword of Modernism.
Jed Johnson was an American interior designer and film director. TheNew York Times hailed Johnson as "one of the most celebrated interior designers of our time."
The Bank of the Metropolis was a bank in New York City that operated between 1871 and 1918. The bank was originally located at several addresses around Union Square in Manhattan before finally moving to 31 Union Square West, a 16-story Renaissance Revival building designed by Bruce Price and built between 1902 and 1903.
The W New York Union Square is a 270-room, 21-story boutique hotel operated by W Hotels at the northeast corner of Park Avenue South and 17th Street, across from Union Square in Manhattan, New York. Originally known as the Germania Life Insurance Company Building, it was designed by Albert D'Oench and Joseph W. Yost and built in 1911 in the Beaux-Arts style.
The Hotel Gerard, currently known as aka Times Square, is a historic hotel located in New York, New York. It had also operated at the Hotel Langwell and Hotel 1-2-3. The building was designed by George Keister and built in 1893. It is a 13-story, U-shaped, salmon colored brick and limestone building with German Renaissance style design elements. The front facade features bowed pairs of bay windows from the third to the sixth floor and the building is topped by steeply pointed front gables and a highly decorated dormer. It was originally built as an apartment hotel.
The Grand Hotel is located at 1232–1238 Broadway at the corner of West 31st Street in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.
The Cable Building is located at 611 Broadway at the northwest corner with Houston Street in NoHo and Greenwich Village, in Manhattan, New York City. Since it spans a block, the Cable Building also has addresses of 2–18 West Houston Street and 178–188 Mercer Street.
The Garrick Cinema was a 199-seat movie house at 152 Bleecker Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Andy Warhol debuted many of his notable films in this building in the late 1960s. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention played here nightly for 6 months in 1967.
The 55th Street Playhouse—periodically referred to as the 55th Street Cinema and Europa Theatre—was a 253-seat movie house at 154 West 55th Street, Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that opened on May 20, 1927. Many classic art and foreign-language films, including those by Jean Cocteau, Sergei Eisenstein, Federico Fellini, Abel Gance, Fritz Lang, Josef Von Sternberg and Orson Welles, were featured at the theater. Later, Andy Warhol presented many of his notable films in this building in the late 1960s. Other notable films were also shown at the theater, including Boys in the Sand (1971) and Him (1974).
The Met Fifth Avenue is the primary museum building for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The building is located at 1000 Fifth Avenue, along the Museum Mile on the eastern edge of Central Park in Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Pat Hackett is an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. Hackett was a close friend and collaborator of pop artist Andy Warhol. They co-authored the books POPism: The Warhol Sixties (1980) and Andy Warhol's Party Book (1988). She also edited TheAndy Warhol Diaries (1989). Hackett was an editor for Interview magazine and she co-wrote the screenplay for the film Bad (1977).