New York Times Building (41 Park Row)
41 Park Row, also 147 Nassau Street and formerly the New York Times Building, is an office building in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, across from City Hall and the Civic Center. It occupies a plot abutting Nassau Street to the east, Spruce Street to the north, and Park Row to the west. The building, originally the headquarters of The New York Times, is the oldest surviving structure of Lower Manhattan's former "Newspaper Row" and has been owned by Pace University since 1951.
41 Park Row contains a facade of Maine granite at its lowest two stories, above which are rusticated blocks of Indiana limestone. Vertical piers on the facade highlight the building's vertical axis. The facade also contains details such as reliefs, moldings, and colonettes. When completed, the building was 13 stories and contained a mansard roof; the roof was removed as part of a later expansion that brought the building to 16 stories.
The Times constructed the previous five-story building at 41 Park Row between 1857 and 1858 as its third headquarters. That building was replaced in 1889 as a Romanesque Revival structure by George B. Post, which was erected while operations at the Times proceeded in the old quarters. 41 Park Row was the home of the Times until 1903, when it moved to One Times Square. The building was subsequently expanded by four stories between 1904 and 1905. The building was purchased by Pace University in 1951 and has been used for classrooms and offices since then. 41 Park Row was designated a New York City landmark in 1999. The building is also a contributing property to the Fulton–Nassau Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district created in 2005.
Site
The building is in the Financial District of Manhattan, just east of New York City Hall and the Civic Center. It sits on a plot that abuts Nassau Street to the east, Spruce Street to the north, and Park Row to the west. 150 Nassau Street is directly across Nassau Street to the east, while the Morse Building is across Nassau Street to the southeast. The Potter Building is on the same block as 41 Park Row and Pace University's One Pace Plaza is across Spruce Street.The structure sits on a trapezoidal lot with a frontage of on Spruce Street, on Nassau Street, and on Park Row, with a party wall adjoining the Potter Building. The building has alternate addresses of 40–43 Park Row and 147 Nassau Street.
The triangle just north of 41 Park Row, bounded by Nassau and Spruce Streets and Park Row, was called Printing-House Square because of the area's status as New York City's "Newspaper Row" in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin holding a copy of his Pennsylvania Gazette stands in the square. The statue was made by Ernst Plassmann and was dedicated in 1872.
Architecture
41 Park Row was originally designed by George B. Post and constructed between 1888 and 1889 in the Romanesque Revival style. The structure was originally composed of 13 stories, including a mezzanine above the 12th floor as well as a mansard roof covering the top floors. Robert Maynicke, a onetime associate of Post's, designed its four-story expansion in 1904–1905. During the expansion, the mezzanine was converted to a full 13th story and three more stories were added. Following the expansion, 41 Park Row was tall with 16 stories. The building is the last remaining former newspaper headquarters on Printing House Square.Facade
41 Park Row contains a facade of Maine granite on its lowest two stories, rusticated blocks of Indiana limestone on the 3rd through 14th stories, and terracotta on the 15th and 16th stories. As originally constructed, the northern, western, and eastern facades of 41 Park Row were arranged into three horizontal sections. These consisted of the five-story base, a six-story midsection of two stories above four, and the two-story mansard roof with dormer windows. The horizontal lines of these facades were less prominent, with two courses above the 5th and 11th stories dividing the three horizontal sections. The arrangement of these facades after its expansion remained largely unchanged except in the upper stories. The southern facade, which faces the Potter Building, is made of red brick with a chimney.Vertical piers on the facade highlight the building's vertical axis. The piers split the Nassau Street and Park Row facades into four vertical bays and the Spruce Street facade into three bays. The stories were split into horizontal groups using brackets and moldings. The Nassau Street and Park Row facades generally contained several superimposed arches in each bay, similarly to Post's previous commission of the New York Produce Exchange. The arches contain aluminum-and-glass window infill.
The articulation of the Spruce Street facade is similar to that the northernmost bays on Park Row and Nassau Street, except at the first story. The northernmost bays on Park Row and Nassau Street, as well as all the bays on Spruce Street, are also narrower than the other bays on the facade; the remaining bays on Park Row and Nassau Street are the wider bays. The first story contains large display windows in each bay, with granite piers separating the bays. There are entrances on all three facades, with the main entrance on Spruce Street; prior to 2019, the main entrance was on Park Row, where there was a double-door entrance between the two center bays. A streetlight, which is a New York City designated landmark, is affixed to the Nassau Street facade.
On the narrow bays between the 3rd and 5th floors, there is one double-wide arch in each bay that extends over the 3rd and 4th floors, a balustrade on the 3rd floor, and a pair of arched windows in each fifth floor bay. The wide bays contain a triple-wide arch extending from the 3rd to 5th floors, with a balustrade on the 3rd floor and carved motifs on the arches' spandrels. The 6th through 9th floors are designed with a single arch extending over the narrow bays and a pair of arches in the wider bays. There are three sets of two-story arcades at the top of the building, formed by the 10th and 11th, the 12th and 13th, and the 15th and 16th floors. These arcades contain two double-height arches in the narrow bays and three in the wide bays, with elaborate motifs upon each of the arcades. The 14th story, designed as a "transitional story", contains rectangular window openings with two windows in each narrow bay and three in each wide bay. A terracotta parapet runs above the 16th floor.
Foundation
41 Park Row's strong foundations, which include several foundations from the previous building on the site, allowed the outer walls to be relatively lightweight. The layer of sand underneath the building descends. The brick piers under the building are deep and are connected by inverted brick arches, whose maximum depth is.The foundational piers from the previous building on the site, which dated from 1858, are wrapped with masonry to allow them to handle the current building's greater load. When the current building was erected, new foundations were appended to the old piers. The original foundations consisted of twenty-two piers—twelve on the perimeter and ten inside the lot line—and each of these piers were wide.
Features
41 Park Row has two basement levels. The basement and subbasement extend underneath the adjacent streets, projecting outward underneath Nassau Street and outward underneath Park Row. In addition, there is another basement with a footprint measuring underneath Spruce Street, with a ceiling tall. This space contained five printing presses when The New York Times was headquartered there and was later used by Pace University as a gym. On the first floor was a publication office divided into compartments with marble-and-oak partitions, as well as two private administrative offices on the east and west ends. The first floor later became the Pace University bookstore and lobby and was converted to an art gallery and student commons between 2017 and 2019.The lowest five floors are at the same height as the original building's stories, as were the two basement levels. The internal structure of 41 Park Row was made of wrought iron below the 11th floor and lighter cast-iron above that floor; the cast-iron above the 11th floor was replaced in the 1904–1905 renovation. Above the second floor, on the Nassau Street and Park Row sides, the load-bearing walls of the piers are reinforced with Phoenix columns, thus forming anchorages within the side walls. These anchorages are used to secure the iron cross-girders underneath each floor; the 3rd through 11th stories are also supported by beams with hollow-tile flat arches. Unlike its predecessor, the current building has no interior partition walls. The upper stories utilized lighter piers because they carried lighter loads.
The original 13th floor, which was the top floor, had a ceiling of and contained the composing room and two other rooms, allowing the printers access to more natural light. There were two large skylights above the composing room. The present building's roof contains a wooden water tower, elevator penthouses, a dormer for the stairs, and mechanical equipment.
Originally, the building was served by three elevators and a staircase on the south side of the building. A fourth elevator was added in the 1904–1905 expansion.