Singer Building

The Singer Building (also known as the Singer Tower) was an office building and early skyscraper at the northwestern corner of Liberty Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. Serving as the headquarters of the Singer Manufacturing Company, it was commissioned by the company's leader Frederick Gilbert Bourne and designed by architect Ernest Flagg in multiple phases from 1897 to 1908. The building's architecture contained elements of the Beaux-Arts and French Second Empire styles. It was demolished in 1969. The building was composed of four distinct sections. The original 10-story Singer Building at 149 Broadway was erected between 1897 and 1898, and the adjoining 14-story Bourne Building on Liberty Street was built from 1898 to 1899. In the first decade of the 20th century, the two buildings were expanded to form the 14-story base of the Singer Tower, which rose another 27 stories. The facade was made of brick, stone, and terracotta. A dome with a lantern capped the tower. The foundation of the tower was excavated using caissons; the building's base rested on shallower foundations. The Singer Building used a steel frame, though load-bearing walls initially supported the original structure before modification. When completed, the 41-story building had a marble-clad entrance lobby, 16 elevators, 410,000 square feet (38,000 m2) of office space, and an observation deck. With a roof height of 612 feet (187 m), the Singer Tower surpassed Philadelphia City Hall to become the tallest building in the world from 1908 to 1909, when it was superseded by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower. The base occupied the building's entire land lot; the tower's floors took up just one-sixth of that area. Despite being regarded as a city icon, the Singer Building was razed between 1967 and 1969 to make...