60 Hudson Street
60 Hudson Street, formerly known as the Western Union Building, is a 24-story telecommunications building in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Built in 1928–1930, it was one of several Art Deco-style buildings designed by Ralph Thomas Walker of Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker for telecommunications in the early 20th century. 60 Hudson Street spans the entire block between Hudson Street, Thomas Street, Worth Street, and West Broadway.
60 Hudson Street is tall. Its design shows the influence of Dutch and German Expressionism, with Art Deco detailing. The building's shape features asymmetrical massing and numerous setbacks. The brick facade uses a gradient color scheme with nineteen distinct hues, moving from darker shades to lighter ones as the building rises, and several ornate entrances at ground level lead to a barrel-vaulted brick lobby.
60 Hudson Street was initially the headquarters of Western Union, and its construction was commissioned by Western Union president Newcomb Carlton. The building was described as the world's largest telegraph building upon its opening and served as the combined headquarters for all of Western Union's divisions, which were scattered across New York City prior to the building's completion. Though Western Union relocated elsewhere in 1973, its former headquarters remain a communications center, and since the late 20th century, has housed a colocation center, making it one of the most important Internet hubs in the world. The exterior and lobby were designated as official New York City landmarks in 1991.
Architecture
60 Hudson Street is tall and contains 24 stories. It occupies a trapezoidal plot measuring on Hudson Street to the west, on West Broadway to the east, on Thomas Street to the south, and on Worth Street to the north. The Worth and Thomas Street elevations are parallel to each other and perpendicular to the West Broadway elevation. The Hudson Street elevation runs diagonally, intersecting both Worth and Thomas Streets.The building was designed by Ralph Walker of Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker in the Art Deco style. 60 Hudson Street was the third Art Deco building in the New York City area that Walker designed, after the Barclay–Vesey Building and New Jersey Bell Headquarters Building ; it was followed by 101 Willoughby Street and 1 Wall Street and 32 Avenue of the Americas, as well as telephone buildings in Upstate New York. Within the New York City area, McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin designed numerous other buildings for AT&T or its affiliates during the same time span. 60 Hudson Street was one of several technologically advanced headquarters erected in the mid-20th century for communications and utility companies in the U.S. Unlike the AT&T buildings, 60 Hudson Street lacks a unified iconography in its ornamentation.
Form
The massing of 60 Hudson Street includes numerous setbacks. Though setbacks in New York City skyscrapers were mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution in order to allow light and air to reach the streets below, they later became a defining feature of the Art Deco style. 60 Hudson Street's massing mostly uses rectangular shapes in spite of its trapezoid-shaped lot. This may have been a response to architecture critic Lewis Mumford's previous criticism of the Barclay–Vesey Building's transition from a parallelogram shaped base to a right-angled tower, which he regarded as an "annoying defect". Walker subsequently wrote that Mumford's criticism made him realize "a building could take its own form regardless of the land below". Accordingly, Walker designed 60 Hudson Street as an intricate set of interlocking slabs.On the Hudson Street elevation is a two-story screen, behind which rise three rectangular slabs. The northern, center, and southern slabs are respectively 15, 21, and 19 stories tall. By contrast, the West Broadway elevation, which is perpendicular to both Thomas and Worth Streets, is symmetrical, with the top floors behind a central slab. Along the outer sections of the West Broadway elevation, the setbacks are at the 13th, 15th, 19th, and 22nd stories; the center section contains projecting dormers that rise an additional story above the previous setback, except at the 22nd floor. The series of setbacks on Thomas and Worth Streets are largely symmetrical, and are continuations of the setbacks on the outer edges of the West Broadway elevation. There are several projecting dormers along the setbacks near the western ends of both elevations.
60 Hudson Street's form was also influenced by its interior use, as it was a "hybrid building" that contained offices along with mechanical equipment. There were numerous functions that did not necessitate sunlight and could operate using artificial light, such as the central operating system and the mechanical space, which was placed inside the building's core. The office space, conversely, was placed on the exterior walls, so 60 Hudson Street did not require light courts that were as extensive as in nearby buildings.
Facade
A brick facade was used for 60 Hudson Street and for Walker's other communications buildings, since he preferred the material for its texture and its flexibility in color combinations. The brick ornamentation on the facade was concentrated around the base, as well as on the parapets on each setback. The use of brick was likely influenced by Dutch and German Expressionism, as well as Walker's preference for "unity and harmony", his dislike of terracotta-on-brick ornamentation, and his observation that stone could change color within a short time. The brick was made by the Continental Clay Products Company of Fallston, Pennsylvania, which also made the facade for the David Stott Building in Detroit, Michigan. Walker also designed the facade with a grid of accented vertical piers, contrasting with horizontal spandrels. This emphasized the vertical lines of the building and, when combined with the setbacks, created an appearance of cascades.The bricks were tinted in various tones of red, arranged in a gradient, inspired by Louis Sullivan's use of "tapestry brick" in different hues. 60 Hudson Street was one of the first structures to use bricks in this manner. According to Walker, this was inspired by Western Union's inclination toward using a distinctive design for the building. There are 19 shades of brick used in the building. Each shade was created by baking the bricks in a kiln run under varying circumstances. The darkest bricks were used in the base, and the bricks on upper stories contained progressively lighter hues; the colors of the bricks changed every. To create contrasts in the facade, the base also contained some light bricks and the upper stories also had some dark bricks. Though the facade mostly used brick in red and yellow hues, there were also bricks in very dark blue and purple hues.
Base
The base comprises the first two stories. The lowest section of the facade is composed of three courses of pink granite, while the brick facade rises above that. Around the doors and windows, the brickwork is arranged similarly to curtains. The base is also divided vertically by stepped brick piers. Most ornamentation is made of brick, though the friezes, window frames, and doorways are made of bronze.On the Hudson Street elevation, the facade forms a two-story "screen", behind which rise the upper stories. The main entrance archway is in the center of this "screen", near the intersection with Jay Street. It consists of five bronze doors beneath a bronze lintel, as well as a glazed window above the doors, which is subdivided by diagonal muntins. The other archways on Hudson Street include storefronts on the ground level, and curtain-shaped windows with vertical muntins on the second story. A smaller doorway faces the corner of Hudson and Worth Streets, on the northwest side of the plot.
The West Broadway elevation is designed similarly to the "screen" on the Hudson Street elevation. There is a centrally positioned entrance with five doors, a bronze lintel, and a glazed window with diagonal muntins. Three storefronts are on either side of the doorway on West Broadway; at the second story, two of these storefronts contain curtain-shaped windows, and the third contains a pair of sash windows set between vertical brick piers. On the Worth Street elevation, there are storefront windows at either end. The central section of the Worth Street elevation contains triple-hung windows, which concealed an auditorium inside. On Thomas Street, there are two storefront windows on the easternmost bays, as well as two double-height loading docks. The remaining bays on Thomas Street contain rectangular windows or ventilation grates, which are set between brick piers.