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notes
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Landmarks
Preservation Commission. Designated February 8, 2000; LP-2056
Summary
The twenty-story Whitehall Building, named for Peter
Stuyvesant's seventeenth-century house that had been located nearby, was
constructed in 1902-04 and designed by the preeminent turn-of -the-century
architect Henry J. Hardenbergh. This highly visible site at the
southernmost tip of Manhattan, overlooking Battery Park, inspired the
architect to create a building with bold design features and a dramatic
color scheme. Built as a speculative office tower by the real estate and
development firm of Robert A. and William H. Chesebrough, the building was
an immediate success and the developers began plans to build an addition.
They hired the prolific architectural firm of Clinton & Russell to
design a thirty-one-story addition facing West Street, with a tower
overlooking the original building. Constructed in 1908-10, the Greater
Whitehall, as the addition was called, was the largest office structure in
the city at the time of its completion. The building's huge size coupled
with its location on landfill at the edge of Manhattan island created the
need for unusual types of foundations and methods for their installation.
The elegant limestone facade, designed in a neo-Renaissance style with a
traditional organization of base, shaft, and capital complements the
original structure. Together the two sections of the building create a
dramatic visual introduction to the towers of Manhattan.
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