Union Inland Terminal No. 1
111 8th Avenue | also 315 West 15th Street, 74 9th Avenue, 325 West 15th Street | Chelsea | built 1931
Open on the map11 entries
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.
- 1930
The Port Authority plans a Chelsea freight terminal and buys up the block's houses
In May 1930 the Port Authority and the railroads agreed on a union inland freight terminal, to fill the block from 15th to 16th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, at a planned cost of $15 million. Most of the block held houses, plus a factory in the middle on 15th Street. The authority kept buying land despite protests from residents, and by October 1930 owned 85 percent and was preparing to take the rest by condemnation.
“By October 1930, the Port Authority had bought 85 percent of the site and was preparing to acquire the remaining buildings through condemnation.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1931
Governor Franklin Roosevelt breaks ground for the Inland Terminal
New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt attends the groundbreaking for the Port Authority's Union Inland Terminal No. 1 on April 30, 1931. The block-long freight terminal is designed to gather cargo from Hudson River piers and the railroads feeding Manhattan under one roof. Architect Lusby Simpson of Abbott, Merkt & Co. gives the building its Art Deco detailing.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1932
Lusby Simpson designs a terminal with twice the floor space of the Empire State Building
Lusby Simpson of Abbot, Merkt & Co., later known for redesigning Bryant Park, designed the brick-and-concrete Art Deco terminal, which filled the whole block. Its 2.9 million square feet of floor space was twice that of the Empire State Building, finished a year earlier. Two freight elevators could lift 30-foot semi trucks to the upper floors, and Art Moderne panels decorated the entrances. Workers had direct subway entrances.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1932
The Port Authority dedicates its new Eighth Avenue freight terminal
Inland Terminal No. 1 is formally dedicated on September 16, 1932, though work on the fifteen-story building continues after the ceremony. Freight elevators built to carry loaded trucks lift cargo directly to the upper floors, letting the Port Authority consolidate shipping that once moved through scattered Hudson River piers. The terminal fills nearly the entire block between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1933
Commerce Hall opens with a Ford Motor Company exhibit
A 325-seat auditorium called Commerce Hall opens on the building's fifteenth floor on December 8, 1933, hosting an exhibition of Ford Motor Company vehicles. The hall lets manufacturers and shippers show off goods moving through the terminal below. Within weeks, hundreds of shipping firms are working out of the building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1955
A Port Authority helicopter crashes onto the 15th floor and lodges in flames
On July 13, 1955, a Bell 47 helicopter flown by the Port Authority crashed shortly after take-off. The building's rooftop helipad had opened on May 31, 1951. The helicopter fell onto the fifteenth floor and stuck there, burning, and both the pilot and his one passenger survived with injuries.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1973
The Port Authority sells the terminal for $24 million
The Port Authority moves its headquarters to the new World Trade Center in 1973 and that July sells 111 Eighth Avenue to Realopco Inc., a company run by brothers Sylvan Lawrence and Seymour Cohn, for $24 million. Manhattan's industrial decline leaves the huge building only about half occupied by 1976, but occupancy recovers to roughly ninety percent within a few years.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1998
Taconic closes on the building in 1998 and pitches it to telecom firms
In a sale finalized in January 1998, Taconic Investment Partners and Blackacre Capital bought the Port Authority building and three others from the Lawrence family for $387 million. Taconic began a $50 million renovation that replaced the wiring, and marketed the space as a carrier hotel for the booming internet business, citing its high ceilings, large floors and fiber-optic connections. Within a couple of years about a third of the space had gone to telecommunications companies and another third to advertising and internet firms.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2003
The building keeps its power on during the Northeast blackout
Powered by an underground fuel tank and 37 generators, 111 Eighth Avenue stayed lit through the Northeast blackout of 2003. Taconic had marketed the building in the late 1990s as a carrier hotel with five times the electrical capacity that typical tenants required.
“During the Northeast blackout of 2003, the building was able to keep power on, thanks to an underground fuel tank and 37 generators.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2006
The Atlantic Theater Company opens a 99-seat theater in the sub-basement
A 99-seat house for the Atlantic Theatre Company opened in 2006 in the sub-basement of the former freight terminal. That same year Google opened its largest engineering office outside California in the building.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2010
Google agrees to buy the entire building for $1.8 billion
In 2010, Google contracts to purchase all of 111 Eighth Avenue from Taconic Investment Partners, which had bought the building in 1998 and repositioned it as a carrier hotel for technology firms, in a deal reported at around $1.8 billion, the largest U.S. office building transaction that year. The former freight terminal becomes Google's East Coast headquarters.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 111 Eighth AvenueWikipedia
- An Art Deco Behometh - 111 8th AvenueDaytonian in Manhattan
- PORT AUTHORITY MOSAIC, 14th Street stationForgotten New York
Nearby
- Maritime Hotel363 West 16th Street | 4 entries
- Old Homestead Steakhouse56 9th Avenue | 8 entries
- New York Savings Bank Building81 8th Avenue | 10 entries
- Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard's Church330 West 14th Street | 5 entries
- New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies333 West 17th Street | 2 entries
- Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard328 West 14th Street | 3 entries