26 Broadway
26 Broadway, also known as the Standard Oil Building or Socony–Vacuum Building, is an office building adjacent to Bowling Green in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The 31-story, structure was designed in the Renaissance Revival style by Thomas Hastings of Carrère and Hastings, in conjunction with Shreve, Lamb & Blake. It was built in 1884–1885 as the headquarters of Standard Oil, at the time one of the largest oil companies in the United States, and expanded to its current size in 1921–1928.
26 Broadway is on a pentagonal site bounded by Broadway to the northwest, Bowling Green to the west, Beaver Street to the south, New Street to the east/southeast, and the axis of Morris Street to the north. The first sixteen stories occupy much of the lot, with several setbacks, a curved facade along Broadway, and two light courts. Above it is a twelve-story tower topped by a stepped pyramid. The ground story has a lobby leading to three banks of elevators. The Standard Oil executive offices on the top stories included a board room on the 21st floor.
The original structure was built for Standard Oil on the former site of U.S. treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton's house. The Standard Oil Building was expanded in 1895 and again after World War I, when Walter C. Teagle bought four neighboring buildings to create a continuous lot. The building was greatly expanded in a multi-phase construction project during the 1920s. 26 Broadway was sold to another owner in 1956 but remained a prominent structure on Bowling Green. In 1995, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 26 Broadway as an official city landmark. It is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district created in 2007.
Site
The Standard Oil Building is at 26 Broadway in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Broadway to the northwest and west, Beaver Street to the south, and New Street to the east and southeast. It occupies the physical lots of 10-30 Broadway, 1-11 Beaver Street, and 73-81 New Street. The building has a land lot with an area of. The site has a frontage of about along Broadway, along Beaver Street, and along New Street.Nearby buildings include 2 Broadway to the south; 1 Broadway and the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House to the southwest; and the Charging Bull sculpture, Bowling Green Offices Building, and the Cunard Building to the west. In addition, 70 Broad Street is one block southeast. The New York City Subway's Whitehall Street station and Bowling Green station are both less than a block south. The Standard Oil Building was one of several corporate headquarters to be constructed at the southern end of Broadway during the early 20th century.
Architecture
The building was designed by Thomas Hastings of Carrère and Hastings, in conjunction with Shreve, Lamb & Blake, in the Renaissance Revival style. It was the only skyscraper that Carrère and Hastings designed in Lower Manhattan. Richmond Shreve of Shreve, Lamb & Blake oversaw the construction of the building's expansion and was tasked with solving logistical issues; however, not much is known about the tasks performed by William F. Lamb and Theodore Blake. The structure is tall, and it is cited as containing either 31 or 34 stories. The building was erected by general contractor C. T. Wills Inc. and structural steel contractor Post & McCord. Numerous other contractors and engineers were involved in the building's construction.Form
The building has a complex massing. Its lower portion occupies the entire pentagonal lot, following the curving contour of Broadway at that point, while its tower is aligned with the grid to which Lower Manhattan's other skyscrapers conform. A deep light court measuring cuts through the center of the Beaver Street facade; an interior light court measuring is also present on the northern side of the building. The Beaver Street light court was the last section to be constructed due to the presence of a holdout lot occupied by Childs Restaurants.The original Standard Oil Building, a 15- or 16-story building initially faced in brick, still exists at the base of the modern skyscraper. The interior floors of the annex portions were designed so that they were at the same level as the floors in the original building. The newer floors are carried by trusses over the original structure, rather than resting on the older building's walls. In total, the base of the building is 16 stories.
26 Broadway features numerous setbacks on its facade, as mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution. The lowest such setback is at the 10th floor on the New and Beaver Streets sides, and another setback exists on all side above the 16th floor, where the building's base transitions into the tower. The tower section of 26 Broadway contains an additional 13 stories above the northern edge of the expanded base, above which is a stepped triple-height pyramid. Two other setbacks exist above the 18th and 22nd floors of the tower. The setbacks give the tower a dimension of at the 17th and 18th stories, tapering to square above the 22nd story.
Facade
The modern building's facade is primarily composed of buff-colored Indiana Limestone, covering the tower and much of the base. The limestone facade at the lowest four stories is rusticated. The original building's facade was made of red brick and granite, making it appear as though the original section was separate from the expanded structure. Part of this facade is visible from New Street, but the Broadway facade was totally replaced with limestone. A small portion of the original building's southern facade is still visible but was given a limestone overlay.Base
The Broadway facade slopes slightly downward to the south: at the northern part of the building, the ground level is at the same height as the building's second floor. It is designed so the first and fourth floors have rows of openings, while the second and third floors have some large arched windows. The main entrance is near the middle of the curved Broadway facade; it consists of a recessed double-height arch, with elaborately carved spandrels at its top. Double-height arched windows are on either side of the main entrance arch. There are also two secondary entrances at 24 and 28 Broadway, respectively to the south and north of the main arch; these entrances are within doorways topped by pediments and clocks. The former was historically an entrance to retail space, while the latter provides access to the original building. In the southern section of the Broadway facade, as well as on the wings facing Beaver Street, the arched windows are flanked by smaller windows.On Beaver Street to the south, the ground level is at the same elevation as the first floor and contains storefronts. The Beaver Street facade is divided into three sections. The center section only reaches to the third floor and contains a cornice above projecting vertical pilasters, while the taller outer sections contain double-height arched windows between smaller window openings. On New Street, the facade is divided into two sections: the northern section is made of brick and granite, and the southern section is made of limestone.
Above the base, the Broadway facade rises as a twelve-story wall resembling a cliff; it is interrupted only by a setback from the Beaver Street side, where there is an intermediate cornice. The bays around each corner and around the center arch has quoins from the fourth to the 12th stories. The 13th story is designed as an intermediate cornice, while the 14th through 16th stories are designed as a colonnade. There are minor differences in decoration related to when each part of the facade was built. The 14th through 16th stories have shallow pilasters on the newer northern portion of the Broadway facade, while the older southern portion has engaged Ionic columns.
Tower
The tower section of the building rises 13 or 14 stories from the base. The 22nd-story setback has obelisks at each corner. The three highest stories of the tower are surrounded by a colonnade with Ionic columns. The tower is topped by a ziggurat-style pyramid that was inspired by the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pyramid was added when the building was expanded in the 1920s, with its finial rising above ground level. It serves not only as a steam vent but also as an allusion to the Greek god Hephaestus. The pyramid contains a cauldron that initially was lit by four kerosene lamps; this signified the fact that Standard Oil's founders, the Rockefeller family, made their first profits from kerosene. The cauldron's light was extinguished after 1956.Foundation
The modern building was constructed in several phases around the preexisting buildings. The buildings were occupied by numerous tenants, who were allowed to temporarily stay in place due to the dearth of office space in Lower Manhattan in the 1920s. The structures included the Welles Building at 14-20 Broadway, at the modern building site's western boundary; the New York Produce Exchange at Broadway and Beaver Street, on the site's southwest corner; the Lisbon Building at Beaver and New Streets, at the site's southeast corner; and a five-story Childs Restaurants location in the middle of the block on Beaver Street, on the southern boundary. The original Standard Oil structure was on the northern boundary of the site.Further complicating work was the presence of quicksand some below ground, underneath which was a hardpan of clay, gravel, and boulders. Tide water ranged from beneath the ground, under which was another layer of shale and earth deep; the underlying bedrock was under the shale and earth. The Welles Building and the original Standard Oil Building contained thick footings that went into the quicksand, though only a few of the footings reached the hardpan. Thus, the water had to be pumped out of the site before the superstructure was built. The new footings were built using a caisson method. A cofferdam wall was built underneath part of the expanded site, extending down to the bedrock at the deepest level. A complex system of underpinning was then undertaken so that the existing buildings would not collapse while excavation and construction of the foundation was ongoing. The building contains a basement deep, as well as a sub-basement deep, the latter of which contains all of 26 Broadway's mechanical equipment.