Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Photo Gallery Tuesday " The Western Union Building"


Walking around Chelsea on my last trip, I saw this fabulous building. I had to photograph it and then when I got home, checked online to see it's history. (reason to love a walking tour, they would have already told me what I was looking at) From the fabulous website FlatironBid.org here is the history on this amazing building:

It had been hidden under a shroud of scaffolding for many months, but in the summer of 2007, one of the Flatiron district's most historic buildings once again stepped into the sun — repointed, reconverted and ready for another life.
It is the picturesque seven-story red-brick building that has graced the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street since 1883 and was once described by the Architectural Record as "one of the happiest bits of our street architecture."
Originally erected as an uptown branch of Western Union, with pneumatic tubes that carried messages underground to the telegraph company's headquarters 2 1/2 miles away on lower Broadway, 186 Fifth Avenue was an office building for more than a century. Now, five of its seven floors have been converted to loft condominiums by Walter & Samuels Inc. The bottom two floors remain commercial, with stores on street level.
The building, one of Fifth Avenue's earliest commercial structures, was designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh, whose own office occupied the top floor. It was hardly Hardenbergh's only contribution to the New York cityscape. His other commissions included the Dakota apartment house, the Plaza Hotel and the original Waldorf-Astoria at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, where the Empire State Building now presides.
Designed in the Queen Anne style, the Western Union building is distinguished not only by its red brick façade, but by its gabled roof, six pedimental dormer windows, octagonal chimney, wide flat arches and friezes on the third and sixth floors. Its legacy is written on its face. Just beneath the roof of the Fifth Avenue side are the letters "W.U." and the year "1883," while the 23rd Street facing is decorated with a frieze that includes the words "Western Union."
In 1989, the building became a New York Historic Designation as part of the Ladies' Mile Historic District.




Sign Up for Daily Emails
Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner
Share:

3 comments

Daryl said...

a while back i took a shot of that building with the hitting it 'just so' .. but i never knew it had a history ... thanks!!!

Vagabonde said...

I am so pleased to have found your blog, by chance. We usually go to New York once a year, last year we went there twice. We have seen most of the “sites” and now usually walk around and go to unusual places. I’ll come back and read many of your past posts. We are already booked to fly to NYC next November so I have some time ahead of me.

nycstylelittlecannoli said...

Thanx Daryl always a compliment coming from one who lives in the city

Welcome Vagabonde, glad you found the site and hope it gives you some great ideas when you visit the city.

Blog Design Created by pipdig