Prudence Building | |
---|---|
General information | |
Status | Demolished |
Architectural style | Romanian Revival architecture |
Location | Manhattan, New York City |
Opened | 1923 |
Demolished | 2016 |
The Prudence Building, or Prudence Bonds Building, was a fourteen-story edifice at the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and 43rd Street, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was the headquarters of the Prudence Bonds Corporation, opening in October 1923. Stores on the street level were leased to affluent shops. The banking floor was a close likeness of the Bankers Trust Company building at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The Bank of Manhattan was accorded a 21-year lease and moved its headquarters from 40 Wall Street. The building was demolished in 2016 and the site is now the location of One Vanderbilt. [1]
The structure was built on a plot 66.8 by 100 feet (30 m). The building was entered from Madison Avenue via antique bronze doors. The entrance floor opened into a sixteen-foot-wide marble corridor with elevators leading to the upper floors. An imposing stairway of Italian Travertine marble, ten feet wide with ample landings, led directly to the banking floor. This area was eleven feet above street level. It was composed of marble with a twenty-foot ceiling of Roman architecture classic design. An artistic screen of marble and statuary bronze surrounded the banking space.
The former Charles building was incorporated into the Prudence Building, which encompassed the area once occupied by several structures. The Charles building space became the loan department of the new edifice, a quiet section constructed of steel. [2]
The headquarters of the New York State Committee for the presidential campaign of Al Smith opened in the Prudence Building on May 5, 1924. [3] The committee's chairman was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. [4] After retiring from politics in 1929, Smith made his permanent home an apartment at the southeast corner of 12th Street and Fifth Avenue. His office was in the Prudence Building. [5] It was the administrative center of Tammany Hall in 1950, [6] having relocated from their former headquarters at East 17th Street and 4th Avenue in 1943. Specifically its offices were on the 5th floor of the Prudence Building. [7]
C. Klauberg & Bros., Inc., a razor and cutlery firm established in the early 19th century moved its quarters from the Prudence Building to the Biltmore Hotel at Madison Avenue and 43rd Street, January 1936. By making the change in location, the company increased its space by three times. [8] Hoffritz, Inc., a cutlery interest with a store in the McAlpin Hotel, leased a unit in the Prudence Building in May 1936. Wheelock, Harris & Company negotiated the rental. [9]
The Fuller Building is a skyscraper at 57th Street and Madison Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Walker & Gillette, it was erected between 1928 and 1929. The building is named for its original main occupant, the Fuller Construction Company, which moved from the Flatiron Building.
The Fred F. French Building is a skyscraper at 551 Fifth Avenue on the northeast corner with 45th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Designed by H. Douglas Ives along with John Sloan and T. Markoe Robertson of the firm Sloan & Robertson, it was erected in 1927. The building is named for Fred F. French, owner of the Fred F. French Companies, for whom the structure was commissioned.
The General Electric Building is a skyscraper at the southwestern corner of Lexington Avenue and 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building, designed by Cross & Cross and completed in 1931, was known as the RCA Victor Building during its construction. The General Electric Building is sometimes known by its address to avoid confusion with 30 Rockefeller Plaza, which was once known as the GE Building.
270 Park Avenue, also the JPMorgan Chase Tower and Union Carbide Building, was a skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Built in 1960 for chemical company Union Carbide, it was designed by architects Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). The 52-story, 707 ft (215 m) skyscraper later became the global headquarters for JPMorgan Chase. When it was demolished in 2021, the Union Carbide Building was the tallest peacefully demolished building in the world. A taller skyscraper with the same address, to be completed in 2025, is being constructed on the site.
The Allerton Hotel for Women, today known as Renaissance New York Hotel 57, is a hotel located at 130 East 57th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is a seventeen-story brick, limestone, and terra cotta building designed by Arthur Loomis Harmon in 1920. It was built on the southwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 57th Street by the Allerton House Company at a cost of $700,000. It originally had stores on its ground floor. The hotel intended to accommodate six hundred business and professional women and also shelter young girls. When completed in 1923, the Allerton Hotel had room for four hundred tenants. Its occupancy was filled prior to completion and there was a long waiting list. After opening it was so popular that another establishment of its kind was anticipated.
The Silk Centre was an area of business property, composed of buildings and lofts, which opened in Manhattan, in 1924. It was adjacent to a car-barn site, numerous clothing firms, and advertising agents located within a block or two of this corner. Harper & Brothers was also situated on East 33rd Street.
The Gunther Building was a seven-story commercial edifice in Manhattan located at 391 - 393 Fifth Avenue, between 36th Street and 37th Street. It occupied a plot 41.8 feet (12.7 m) on Fifth Avenue by 111.8 feet (34.1 m) in depth. Built in 1909, the establishment conformed in architecture, appointments, and construction with the Tiffany and Company Building, which adjoined it. The latter structure was designed by Stanford White and was constructed by Tiffany & Company in 1903, at the corner of the block on 37th Street.
The Hale Building is an office structure which opened in 1927 at 11 East 44th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Fred T. Ley & Company built the edifice and Shreve & Lamb were its architects. It was owned by the Eleven East 44th Street Corporation. Hale Building is significant as an important residence for offices on the Lower East Side during the late 1920s and the Great Depression era.
Hoffritz for Cutlery was a specialty retail chain selling cutlery, primarily in the New York metropolitan area. Founded in 1932 in New York City, it grew slowly into a 23 store chain by the mid-1970s. After being bought out of the Federal's bankruptcy in 1975, it grew further, reaching a peak in the early 1990s of 110 stores in 33 states. But the rapid expansion, and a failed attempt to go public, led to the company's bankruptcy in 1994.
452 Fifth Avenue is an office building at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 40th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building includes the 30-story, 400-foot (120 m) HSBC Tower, completed in late 1985 and designed by Attia & Perkins. The 10-story Knox Building, a Beaux-Arts office building designed in 1902 by John H. Duncan, is preserved at the base of the skyscraper. 452 Fifth Avenue faces Bryant Park immediately to the north.
44 Union Square, also known as 100 East 17th Street and the Tammany Hall Building, is a three-story building at 44 Union Square East in Union Square, Manhattan, in New York City. It is at the southeast corner of Union Square East/Park Avenue South and East 17th Street. The neo-Georgian structure was erected in 1928–1929 and designed by architects Thompson, Holmes & Converse and Charles B. Meyers for the Tammany Society political organization, also known as Tammany Hall. It is the organization's oldest surviving headquarters building.
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608 Fifth Avenue, also known as the Goelet Building or Swiss Center Building, is an office building at Fifth Avenue and West 49th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, adjacent to Rockefeller Center. It was designed by Victor L. S. Hafner for the Goelet family, with Edward Hall Faile as structural engineer. The facade uses elements of both the Art Deco style and the International Style, while the lobby was exclusively designed in the Art Deco style.
2 Park Avenue is a 28-story office building in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The structure, along the west side of Park Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets, was designed by Ely Jacques Kahn and was developed by Abe N. Adelson from 1926 to 1928. The building is owned by Morgan Stanley Real Estate and is a New York City designated landmark.
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5 Columbus Circle is an office building on the southeast corner of Broadway and 58th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, just south of Columbus Circle. Designed by Carrère and Hastings in the Beaux-Arts style, it is 286 feet (87 m) tall with 20 stories.
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The Greenwich Savings Bank Building, also known as the Haier Building and 1356 Broadway, is an office building at 1352–1362 Broadway in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Constructed as the headquarters of the Greenwich Savings Bank from 1922 to 1924, it occupies a trapezoidal parcel bounded by 36th Street to the south, Sixth Avenue to the east, and Broadway to the west. The Greenwich Savings Bank Building was designed in the Classical Revival style by York and Sawyer.
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Coordinates: 40°45.2′0″N73°58.72′0″W / 40.75333°N 73.97867°W