Singer Building - History

History

The building was commissioned by Frederick Bourne, the head of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. He hired noted architect Ernest Flagg, who was an early exponent of the Beaux-Arts architectural style. Flagg had also designed the company's previous headquarters at 561 Broadway between Prince and Spring Streets – in what is now the SoHo neighborhood – which was referred to as the "Little Singer Building" after the new building was erected. Plans and working drawings were prepared by George W. Conable (1866–1933).

Flagg believed that buildings more than 10 or 15 stories high should be set back from the street, with the tower occupying only a quarter of the lot. The 12-story base of the building filled an entire blockfront, while the tower above was relatively narrow. The tower floors were squares only 65 feet (20 m) on a side.

New York Times architectural critic Christopher Gray wrote in 2005:

The lobby had the quality of "celestial radiance" seen in world's-fair and exposition architecture of the period, as the author Mardges Bacon described it in her 1986 monograph "Ernest Flagg" (Architectural History Foundation, MIT Press). A forest of marble columns rose high to a series of multiple small domes of delicate plasterwork, and Flagg trimmed the columns with bronze beading. A series of large bronze medallions placed at the top of the columns were alternately rendered in the monogram of the Singer company and, quite inventively, as a huge needle, thread and bobbin.

At 612 feet (187 m) above grade, the Singer Building was the tallest office building in the world from its completion in 1908 until the completion in 1909 of the 700-foot (210 m) Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower at 23rd Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. (Prior to the Singer Building, the 29-story, 391 feet (119 m) tall Park Row Building, completed in 1899, was the tallest building in New York City, and briefly held the title of "Tallest Office Building in the World" until being surpassed in 1901 by the Philadelphia City Hall, at 548 ft (167 m) tall including the statue.)

Skyscraper zoning legislation, enacted in 1916 at Flagg's urging, incorporated many of his ideas for setbacks in tall buildings.

In 1961, Singer sold the building and subsequently moved to Rockefeller Center. The building was then acquired by real estate developer William Zeckendorf, who sought unsuccessfully for the New York Stock Exchange to move there. In 1964 United States Steel acquired the building, along with the neighboring City Investing Building, for demolition. By the 1960s the building was uneconomical because of its small interior dimensions. The tower portion of the building contained only 4,200 square feet (390 m2) per floor, compared with 37,000 square feet (3,400 m2) per floor of the building that replaced it, the U.S. Steel Building (currently known as 1 Liberty Plaza).

Although New York had a newly created Landmarks Preservation Commission by the time demolition commenced in 1967, and the Singer Building was considered to be one of the most iconic buildings in the city, it did not receive landmark designation that would have prevented demolition. Alan Burnham, executive director of the commission, said in August 1967 that if the building were to have been made a landmark, the city would have to either find a buyer for it or acquire it. Demolition commenced in August 1967 and was completed the following year. At the time, it was the tallest building ever to be destroyed. This record was surpassed in 2001 when the September 11 attacks caused the collapse of the nearby World Trade Center, making the Singer Building the 3rd tallest building to be destroyed, but it is still the tallest building ever peacefully demolished. The earlier Singer Building in SoHo remains standing.