EV Haughwout Building
| EV Haughwout Building | |
|---|---|
 EV Haughwout Building (2009) |
|
| Data | |
| place | Broadway 488-492, Manhattan, New York City, USA |
| architect | John P. Gaynor |
| Client | Eder V. Haughwout |
| Architectural style | historicism |
| Construction year | 1857 |
| height | 24 m |
| Coordinates | 40 ° 43 '18.5 " N , 73 ° 59' 58.3" W |
| particularities | |
| First passenger elevator | |
The E.V. Haughwout Building is a five-story, 24-meter-high listed department store building in New York City . It's on the corner of Broadway and Broome Streets in the SoHo district of Manhattan . The building was built from 1856–1857 to a design by John P. Gaynor and housed the sales rooms of the Eder V. Haughwout and Company , which imported, manufactured and sold high-quality home accessories such as chandeliers, porcelain, silverware and cut glassware for wealthy customers. Among other things, Mary Todd Lincoln , the wife of President Lincoln , ordered a new china service for the White House from this company .
Architectural-historical significance
The E. V. Haughwout Building is historically significant for two reasons: firstly because of the new structural use of cast iron elements, and secondly because the world's first passenger elevator was installed in it.
The facade, designed in the Renaissance style, shows the historicism typical of the time : The row of arched windows between Corinthian columns on the four upper floors is based on the model of the Libreria di San Marco by Jacopo Sansovino in Venice . The facade was composed of prefabricated cast iron elements that were manufactured in Daniel D. Badger's cast iron factory . This type of construction was not unusual at the time - the SoHo district of Manhattan is largely shaped by the cast iron architecture of the 19th century. So far, such facade elements have been attached to the load-bearing brick masonry . Since the Haughwout building, because of its location on a street corner, required two complex cast iron facades, it was feared that the weight of the facade elements would exceed the load-bearing capacity of the construction. Gaynor and Badger therefore convinced the client Haughwout to give the building a load-bearing cast iron frame based on an idea by the inventor James Bogardus . Until then, this new method had only been used in isolated cases for factory buildings and warehouses. The E. V. Haughwout Building thus became the forerunner of the steel frame construction that later made skyscraper architecture possible. For this reason it was also called the “first skyscraper”.
A second technical requirement for the construction of high-rise buildings was the use of elevators. Here, too, the E. V. Haughwout Building was a pioneer: when it was officially opened on March 23, 1857, it was able to present the world's first passenger elevator. The elevator, powered by a steam engine installed in the basement, was designed by Elisha Graves Otis and reached a speed of 0.2 m / s. It cost 300 US dollars (around 9,000 US dollars in today's purchasing power). The installation of an elevator in a five-story building was not a technical necessity, but above all a successful marketing gag that was supposed to attract curious customers. The elevator has not been preserved.
For a long time the building was in danger of being demolished for the Lower Manhattan Expressway , which had been planned since 1941 but was ultimately never realized . On November 23, 1965, it was entered on the New York City Designated Landmarks and on August 28, 1973 on the National Register of Historic Places (No. 73001218). The facade was renovated in 1995 and has been beige again since then.
literature
- Norval White, Elliot Willensky: The AIA Guide to New York City . Three Rivers Press, New York, 4th ed. 2000, ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5 , p.102.
- Andrew S. Dolkart, Matthew A. Postal: New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Guide to New York City Landmarks . John Wiley & Sons, New York, 4th ed. 2009, ISBN 978-0-470-28963-1 , pp. 41-42.
Web links
- Photographs and information about the building on New York Architecture , accessed March 23, 2017.
- Photographs and drawings of the EV Haughwout Building in the Library of Congress
Individual evidence
- ^ GE Kidder Smith: Sourcebook of American Architecture. 500 Notable Buildings from the 10th Century to the Present . Princeton Architectural Press, New York 1996, p. 227.
- ↑ Otis - A Visual Timeline (Otis Elevator Company website), accessed March 23, 2017.
- ^ National Park Service: National Register of Historic Places.