The "Tower" Building
New York, New York

No. 50 Broadway
1888

From "A History of Real Estate, Building and Architecture in New York City."
Published during 1898 by the Record and Guide:

"... to him belongs the credit of being the first in the world to construct a building in which the weight of the walls, as well as the floors is transmitted through girders and columns to the footings, and New York City has the honor of being the birth-place of what is the effect a new method of building."

Various sources suggest that The Tower Building was either eleven, thirteen or fifteen stories in height. It was fireproof, and made of Iron, Steel and Masonry.

John Noble Stearns, a silk importer, bought lot No. 50 with a frontage of 21 feet 6 inches, and a depth in the narrow portion of about 108 feet. He tried buying adjacent lots for better frontage, but he was unsuccessful. Because of his misfortune, he was faced with a serious dilemma. In order to make his investment profitable with rental space, he would have to build upwards. The type of construction that was being used at that time would have sacrificed viable floor space on the ground floor. The taller the building, the thicker the exterior walls would have to be in order to support each floor. Then, there are the elevators and stairs. Taking all of that into consideration would have made the ground floor used for nothing more than just a hallway.

Stearns contacted several architects, but only one agreed to design his building, Bradford Lee Gilbert.

Bradford pondered over the situation for several months, until it finally struck him. Using the steel supports like a railroad bridge, turn it on end to support each floor independently. The exterior walls would rest on the beams of each floor to act like a curtain.

Bradford submitted his plans to the New York Building Department on April 17, 1888.  However, the building department did not provide for any construction of this type. The application was then referred to the Board of Examiners. After much delay, construction was started on June 27, 1888, and completed on September 27, 1889.

During its construction, architects declared it unsafe and impracticable, and the newspapers said it was plain “idiotic”. In fact, an engineer that Bradford worked with for years protested. When Bradford didn’t pay him any attention, he went behind his back and contacted Mr. Stearns by letter.  When Stearns reviewed the letter, he was outraged and confronted Bradford.  The letter stated, if the building collapsed, the owner - not the architect - would be responsible for damages.  To appease Stearns, Bradford showed his plans and calculations to prove how structurally sound the building will be in gale force winds.  He also added that he will move his office to the top floor.  "If the building goes down I will go with it."

One Sunday morning, when construction was near completion, the Weather Bureau warned the city of hurricane gales.  A crowd of onlookers gathered on Broadway to watch the building topple.  Bradford being confident of his calculations, pushed his way passed the crowd.

"I secured a plumb-line and began to climb the ladders that the workmen had left in place when they quit work the previous evening. My friend went with me as far as the tenth story. The persons who looked at us from below called us fools. When I reached the thirteenth story, the gale was so fierce I could not stand upright. I crawled on my hands and knees along the scaffolding and dropped the plumb-line. There was not the slightest vibration. The building stood as steady as a rock in the sea."

After returning to the street, the crowd gave him praise and credit.  Since then, the skylines of our cities have changed.

Three years after Bradford's death, the Real Estate Record & Guide reported that the building was not self-supporting to pay the taxes.  The Tower Building was demolished in 1914.

Sources of interest are shown at the bottom of this page.

Just click on a thumbnail image below to open the corresponding picture. 

Sources:
Anonymous, The National Cyclopeadia of American Biography, 1967, vol. 14, pg 298. [reprint.Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms]

Bascomb, Neal, Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City, 2003, pg. 98. [New York: Doubleday]

Gilbert, Bradford Lee, Sketch Portfolio of Railroad Stations and Kindred Structures, 1895, [New York: Railroad Gazette]

Gray, Christopher, "Streetscapes/The Tower Building; The Idea That Led to New York's First Skyscraper", The New York Times, May 5, 1996

Gray, Christopher, "The Architect Who Turned a Railroad Bridge on Its Head", The New York Times, July 1, 2007

Gray, Christopher, "The Four-Story Jigsaw Puzzle", The New York Times, June 9, 2011

Landau, Sarah, Bradford; Conduit, Carl W., "Rise of the New York Skyscraper: 1865-1913, 1996, pgs. 161-166. [New Haven & London: Yale University Press]

Placzek, Adolf K., {Pearson, Marjorie}, Macmillion Encyclopedia of Architects, 1982, vol. 2, pg 201. [The Free Press]

New York City Sky Scrapers

New York Architecture

Withey, Henry F. A.I.A. & Withey, Elsie Rathburn, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased), 1970, pg. 233. [Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc. Los Angeles]