Liberty Tower
55 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10005
Welcome back to Building of the Week, you freaks! For those of you just joining or with short-term memory loss, this is a newsletter where I give you the inside scoop (just me skim-reading on wikipedia) every week on a building in New York City! Pretty self-explanatory tbh but you can never be too sure these days. Without further ado, let’s get started!
The Liberty Tower is a 33-story residential building in the Financial District (FiDi if you’re cool and/or annoying). It was built in 1909-1910 (ugh imagine a building only taking a year to be built? And I don’t want to hear a single “but things are harder now” ounce of bullshit from you construction freaks (@frank @mom)) The building was designed by Henry Ives Cobb in a Gothic Revival style (the same style as Hotel Chelsea & the St. Patrick’s Cathedral (shout out to all you day one baddies, iykyk!!))
Okay holy shit I have to stop the newsletter to talk about Henry Ives Cobb’s grandma for a second. His grandma, August Adams Cobb, abandoned her husband and five of her seven children to go and be one of (dramatic pause) Brigham Young’s wives. Like wife #2!! (soooo Anne Boleyn of her) I want to shit on her because that’s buck wild to leave your family and only take two of your kids, but she was actually a pretty huge feminist and did some cool stuff so she will officially be labeled as a Problematic Fave™.
a few examples of the ornate facade & the many statues
Sheeeesh what a wild piece of juicy gossip I stumbled upon there. Anyways, back to this building if anyone still cares. This excerpt from Wikipedia makes me giggle. “The freestanding facades are covered in white architectural terracotta ornamented with birds, alligators, gargoyles, and other fanciful subjects.” Like how cute!! I think I’m going to start calling you guys my fanciful subjects.
Liberty Tower was originally an office building known as the Bryant Building – for William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post. The building was then sold in 1919 – to Sinclair Oil (from the infamous Teapot Dome scandal). It was not very profitable and had a heap of problems. Architect Joseph Pell Lombardi (the lead architect in charge of converting the building from offices to apartments in 1979) had mega beef with the building. He claimed it was hella rundown and busted. However, he saw its potential and even converted two boardrooms into his apartment.
Since the building doesn’t take up a lot of square footage, selling apartments would prove to be challenging. Lombardi came up with the solution to sell entirely blank apartments (no kitchen, bathroom, or partition walls) that took up whole or partial floors. Kind of genius on his part because that’s way less work for him. There are 89 apartments in this building and each one is unique! Cute!
just look at this lil guy! I love him!
The 9/11 attacks significantly damaged the Liberty Tower. Both internal and external repairs were needed. 202 sculptures on the facade and 3200 terracotta blocks were replaced or fixed. I’m so happy they kept the sculptures instead of opting out for a simpler design. Reject modernity! Embrace tradition! What I find crazy is that each of the 89 apartments had to pay $54,000 for the repairs!! I mean I guess I understand that insurance can only cover so much but damn! Not cute!
an early postcard of the building
Okay after doing more research, it turns out that in the 1960s they previously did restoration to the facade and charged tenants an average of $55,000! That’s equivalent to half a million dollars now! SUPER NOT CUTE! A lot of them had to sell their apartments because they didn’t want to/couldn’t pay for that! This further solidifies my belief that owning an apartment (specifically in NYC) is a scam.
It’s like, do I want cool & ornate buildings or not!? That shit ain’t cheap! Born to want fanciful subjects on my facade, forced to live in glass buildings. Hmm. Poetic.
Fun Facts
The Liberty Tower was, for a time, the tallest building in the world (very similar to how, for a time, I was the youngest baby in the world).
In August of 1982, it was designated as a New York City Landmark, and in September of 1983, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. I don’t have a stupid joke for this, I just think that’s cool.
This building was one of New York City's first structures to be clad entirely with terracotta! Again, I don’t have a joke for that! Maybe that this building is great for houseplants? Because terracotta pots?? Idk, I have a cold & I’m off my game this week.
With a floor area ratio of 30:1, the Liberty Tower was believed to be the world's slimmest skyscraper at the time of its completion. Slay queen! It’s giving Skinty Building realness!
This building is sandwiched between the New York Chamber of Commerce Building and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building. Both have STUNNING architecture, please check them out!! It is also very close to the building they used as Waystar RoyCo from Succession.
WOOOOOOW!! None of you managed to get rickrolled last week. I’m so impressed. But also mad. If I take the time to insert a link into my newsletter, you better fucking press it 🔫.
If you were ever wondering how committed I am to sending these out, I am literally moving today! I’m really excited and I hope I like my new building enough to write about it one day. Wish me luck!!
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