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Marketing

Financial District, Downtown Manhattan, New York City, United States of America


The 30-story, 391-foot-high Park Row Building was the tallest building in New York City and one of the tallest structures in the world between 1899, the year of its completion, and 1908. Located on Park Row across from City Hall Park, the Park Row Building remains, by virtue of its height and twin cupola-topped towers, one of the most distinctive buildings in lower Manhattan. It is one of several surviving late nineteenth-century office towers on a street that became known as Newspaper Row, the center of newspaper publishing in New York City from the 1840s to the 1920s. The building housed the offices of the Associated Press news agency which had been incorporated in New York in 1900, as well as the headquarters of August Belmont's Interborough Rapid Transit Company. The building's architect, R. H. Robertson, who was prominent for his institutional and commercial buildings, designed the Park Row Building using a number of classical elements, including four large sculpted figures set on overscaled brackets, huge columns and pilasters, as well as several projecting ornamental balconies. The two towers that rise above the crowning cornice are capped by ornamented domes which immediately distinguished this structure when it was added to the skyline of New York City at the turn of the century. Early twentieth-century artists admired the shape of the Park Row Building; Alvin Langdon Cobum and Charles Sheeler featured it in their photographs. The building remains in use as a commercial office building.

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

Park Row: "Newspaper Row"' The area of Park Row, Nassau Street, and Printing House Squared roughly from the Brooklyn Bridge to Ann Street, was the center of newspaper publishing in New York City from the 1840s through the 1920s,^ while nearby Beekman Street was the location of the downtown printing industry. In the 1870s, tall office buildings, most associated with newspapers, began to replace earlier, smaller structures. Park Row (with its visually advantageous frontage across from City Hall Park) and adjacent Nassau Street was redeveloped with a series of structures that were important for their architecture and for their clients: the Tribune Building (1873-75, Richard M. Hunt, demolished), 154-170 Nassau Street; the Morse Building (1878- 80, SiMiman & Famsworth; 1900-02, Bannister & Schell), 140 Nassau Street; the Temple Court Building (1881-83, Silliman & Famsworth; 1889-90, James Famsworth, a designated New York City Landmark), 7 Beekman Street; the Potter Building (1883-86, N.G. Starkweather, a designated New York City Landmark), 35-38 Park Row; the New York Times Building (1888-89, George B. Post; 1904-05, Maynicke & Franke, a designated New York City Landmark), 41 Park Row; World (Pulitzer) Building (1889-90, George B. Post, demolished), 53-63 Park Row; Robertson's American Tract Society Building (1894-1895, a designated New York City Landmark), 150 Nassau Street; and his Park Row Building, 15 Park Row/ Robert Henderson Robertson^ A successful and prolific architect, Robert Henry Robertson (1849-1919) employed the popular architectural styles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in his designs, which prompted architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler to note that Robertson had "taken part in every one of the successive 'movements' that have agitated American architects in his time. Bom in Philadelphia and a graduate of Rutgers College, Robertson received his earliest architectural training in the Philadelphia office of Henry Sims, a designer of country houses and Gothic churches. After moving to New York City, Robertson briefly worked in the offices of George B. Post and Edward T. Potter before opening his own ofEce. In 1875, Robertson formed a partnership with William A. Potter, Edward Potter's younger half brother, which continued until 1881. In the 1880s, Robertson most often employed the Romanesque Revival style, which can be seen in his first tall building in New York, the seven-story Lincoln Building at 1 Union Square West (1889-90, a designated New York City Landmark). The Lincoln Building was an early attempt at a tall commercial structure, combining metal framing with masonry bearing walls, articulated in stone, brick, and terra cotta with deep, round arches in a Richardsonian-influenced composition. During the 1890s, Robertson continued to follow popular stylistic trends, melding the picturesque Romanesque Revival with more classical features seen in the Renaissance Revival style. These were employed in his early skyscrapers, the eleven-story Com Exchange Bank, William and Beaver Streets, (1893- 94, demolished), and the twenty-story American Tract Society Building (1894-95, a designated New York City Landmark). The architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler praised the numerous picturesque features found in all of these buildings, but thought tha

Shield's Tavern

Colorful wreaths decorated with fresh fruit and evergreens, dried flowers, and other natural materials are a hallmark of the Christmas season in Colonial Williamsburg. The idea of decorating with fresh fruit is a modern one, starting in the early 20th-century. The tradition in Williamsburg didn't start until 1939, well after the restoration was underway.

Today, Christmas decorations are taken seriously in the Historic Area. You won't find electric Christmas lights here (other than the single candles in the windows), instead, decorations are done using natural materials. Every year there is a "Deck the Doors" contest. The residents each design their own wreaths and garlands and decorate their homes. Many of the wreaths reflect the function of the building, or the resident's trade.