Battery Maritime Building
10 South Street | Financial District | built 1900
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1909
Walker & Morris complete the Battery Maritime Building for Brooklyn ferries
Built from 1906 to 1909 to designs by Walker & Morris, the Beaux-Arts terminal was the eastern section of the Whitehall Street ferry complex and first served boats to 39th Street in Brooklyn. Its facade is made of stamped zinc and copper, rolled steel and cast iron. It became the Governors Island ferry terminal in 1956 and was designated a city landmark in 1967.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1938
The Brooklyn ferry from the terminal stops running and city agencies take over the building
The city's ferry service from the terminal to 39th Street in south Brooklyn ended in 1938, and a succession of city agencies, most recently the Department of Transportation, used the building afterward. By 2002 the once-ornate second-floor waiting room had been split into offices, its stained-glass windows covered with plywood, and it held old Transportation Department files.
Source: observer.com
- 1955
The Army leases slip 7 so its Governors Island ferries stop crossing the Staten Island route
The Army ran ferries to Fort Jay on Governors Island from a pier west of the terminal, so its route crossed the Staten Island ferry's path, and strong currents there meant boats needed extra room. In November 1955 the Army agreed to lease slip 7 to end the conflict. It was replacing its smaller steam ferries with two larger diesel-electric boats that needed bigger slips and docks.
“In November 1955, the U.S. Army agreed to lease slip 7 at the South Street Ferry Terminal to eliminate the conflicts between the ferry lines.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1959
The terminal is renamed the Battery Maritime Building
A 1956-1959 renovation added a fourth floor to the ferry terminal, and about 1,100 employees of the Department of Marine and Aviation moved in. The building was renamed the Battery Maritime Building to reflect its new role as a city office, even as ferry traffic at the slips kept declining.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1967
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the ferry terminal a landmark
The commission held a hearing on December 27, 1966 and continued it to January 31, 1967. Marine and Aviation Commissioner Herbert B. Halberg was among the witnesses for designation and said no building in a similar style would probably ever again be built in the city. The Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association wrote to oppose, and no speaker testified against at either hearing.
“In a letter to the Commission, the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association opposed designation.”
- 1988
Dance Theater Workshop and Creative Time are named as the building's cultural tenants
The two groups were to take 30,000 square feet, half of it rent-free, but had to pay for operating expenses and raise $4 million for renovating the interior. Officials planned to start work in 1990 and open to the public in 1993. Diller Scofidio + Renfro was the renovating architect, but development had stalled by late 1990 and the South Ferry Plaza project was dropped in January 1991 as the real estate market declined.
“The Dance Theater Workshop and the arts group Creative Time were named as the tenants for the Battery Maritime Building.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
Windows on the World's David Emil bids to turn the old waiting room into a restaurant
The restaurateur who had run Windows on the World submitted a bid over the summer of 2001 to lease and renovate the city-owned terminal, with Hugh Hardy as architect. His plan was a restaurant and banquet hall in the second-floor waiting room, then mostly used for storage. After September 11, rumors said Windows would relaunch there, but Emil said the project was not meant as a replacement.
Source: observer.com
- 2005
A five-year restoration rebuilds the terminal's ironwork
Starting in 2001, architects at Jan Hird Pokorny dismantled the Battery Maritime Building's ornate cast-iron facade into more than 11,000 individual pieces for repair. The painstaking restoration wrapped up in 2005, the same year ferry service to Governors Island resumed from the terminal's slips.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
David Byrne turns the terminal into a sound sculpture visitors can play
For Creative Time, Byrne filled 9,000 square feet of the building with an interactive installation called Playing the Building. A retrofitted antique organ sat in the middle of the vast second-floor gallery. Its keys triggered machines attached to metal beams, pipes and conduits, which vibrated, struck and blew across the structure to produce tuned sounds.
Source: creativetime.org
- 2021
Casa Cipriani opens a hotel on the upper floors above the ferry slips
After an exterior restoration from 2001 to 2005 by Jan Hird Pokorny Architects, the building's upper floors were converted to a hotel and event space. The event space opened in November 2019 and the 47-suite Casa Cipriani hotel followed in August 2021. Ferries to Governors Island still leave from slips 5, 6 and 7 on the ground floor.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Battery Maritime BuildingWikipedia
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