90 West Street or West Street Building is a building in Lower Manhattan designed by architect Cass Gilbert and structural engineer Gunvald Aus for the West Street Improvement Corporation. When completed in 1907, the building's Gothic styling and ornamentation served to emphasize its 23-story height, and foreshadowed Gilbert's later work on the Woolworth Building. Originally built as an office building, the main tenant was the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and the top floor was occupied by Garret's Restaurant, which advertised itself as the "world's highest restaurant".
Located on West Street, between Cedar and Albany Streets, just south of the World Trade Center site, the building had a view to the Hudson River before Battery Park City was built on fill across West Street.
In 1998, the building's exterior was designated an architectural landmark by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission. In 2006, it received a National Preservation Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Restoration of the lobby revealed some of Gilbert's original terra cotta work that had been covered over during an earlier modernization project. During this restoration, the copper roof was replaced and replacement gargoyles were added. The building was converted into apartments and reopened on March 7, 2005.
On November 26, 2007, a mammoth sewer pipe burst open into the bottom floors of 90 West from the World Trade Center construction site, damaging dozens of luxury cars and causing a two week evacuation of the building's residents.
Read more about 90 West Street: September 11, 2001 Attacks
Famous quotes containing the words west and/or street:
“Wild Bill was indulging in his favorite pastime of a friendly game of cards in the old No. 10 saloon. For the second time in his career, he was sitting with his back to an open door. Jack McCall walked in, shot him through the back of the head, and rushed from the place, only to be captured shortly afterward. Wild Bill’s dead hand held aces and eights, and from that time on this has been known in the West as “the dead man’s hand.””
—State of South Dakota, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Christopher Cross: You shouldn’t be alone in the street so late at night.
Kitty March: I was coming home from work.
Christopher Cross: You work this late?
Kitty March: Mmm, hmmm.
Christopher Cross: What do you do?
Kitty March: Guess.
Christopher Cross: You’re an actress.
Kitty March: Oh, you are clever!”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)