Park Row Building
15 Park Row | also 19 Park Row, 3 Theater Alley, 13 Ann Street | Financial District | built 1899
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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1897
Builders win a court fight to use lighter concrete floors in the Park Row tower
The city's Board of Examiners denied three petitions to use concrete floors in the new tower and would not say why. The builders went to court, which forced the Superintendent of Buildings to rule, and in December 1897 he approved the Roebling concrete floor system. It cost about $20,000 less than tile and weighed thirty percent less, easing the load on the foundation by 4,500 tons.
- 1898
A steeplejack climbs the flagpole to raise the Stars and Stripes as the steel frame tops out
On March 24, 1898, with the frame at its full height, a professional steeple climber went up the flagpole with an American flag on his shoulders, fastened it and then painted the staff. Several hundred people watched, and The New York Times reported that the crowd cheered when the colors unfurled.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1899
The Park Row Building opens as the world's tallest office building
Architect R.H. Robertson designed the 391-foot tower with 31 stories and twin corner cupolas, its foundation carried on thousands of spruce piles driven into the sand. It opened on July 20, 1899 as the world's tallest office building, a title it held until the Singer Building overtook it in 1908. The Associated Press kept an early office in the new tower.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1900
The Ice Trust dumps ice on the sidewalk after losing the Park Row Building's supply contract
The building's one-year ice contract expired on June 1, 1900. The Ice Trust, counting on its Tammany Hall connections, refused to bid, and the restaurant proprietor, who had his own ice plant, won the work. The Trust still held the contract for the city agencies, so it dumped 500 pounds of ice on the sidewalk each day while city employees drank warm water.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1904
Police raid an illegal gambling operation in the Park Row Building and rip out 33 telephones
In May 1904 the New-York Tribune reported a surprise raid on a gambling operation in the tower, whose manager was Douglas Robinson, brother-in-law of President Theodore Roosevelt. Officers took twenty prisoners and carried off thirty-three telephones and three telegraph instruments. It was not the building's first brush with the law: detectives had raided a bucket shop in Room 711 in 1901, and in 1903 promoter James B. Kellogg was caught running swindles from offices rented under aliases.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1907
A political quarrel in the corridor ends with a jammed revolver at a politician's neck
On the afternoon of September 27, 1907, politician Percy Nagle was talking with friends in the corridor when rival Joseph L. Burke arrived with a group of men. Burke struck Nagle, a small brawl broke out, and one of Burke's men suggested shooting him. Nagle felt a revolver at his neck and heard a click, but the gun had jammed; he seized it, and bystanders hustled the men out of the building.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1918
"Human Fly" Harry Gardiner climbs the tower's facade for the Red Cross
Daredevil climber Harry Gardiner scaled the Park Row Building's exterior on May 26, 1918, drawing a crowd estimated at 50,000 spectators below. The stunt raised money for the American Red Cross during World War I.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1920
Charles Sheeler photographs the building's bare side walls and features the tower in Manhatta
Artists found beauty in the parts of the building away from its ornate front. Alvin Langdon Coburn and Charles Sheeler pointed their cameras at the plain brick side and rear walls, where the steel structure showed, instead of the decorated facade. The tower features in a number of Sheeler's works, among them the film Manhatta, which he made with Paul Strand in 1920.
- 1920
Anarchist Andrea Salsedo dies in a fall from a Justice Department office
Andrea Salsedo, an anarchist accused of helping plan bombings, was arrested on March 7, 1920, and held for nearly two months in the Department of Justice's offices in the building before his body was found on the sidewalk on May 3. Officials said he took his own life out of fear that fellow anarchists would kill him for naming them, but his widow sued for $100,000 alleging he had been abused in custody, and others suspected he had been thrown from the window.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 2000
The century-old office tower is converted into apartments
After decades as commercial office space, the Park Row Building was slated for conversion to residential use by 2000. The plan kept the first ten floors commercial and turned everything above into about 210 apartments. The pair of apartments in the building's cupolas, on the 28th through 30th floors, were not renovated and were offered for sale as unfurnished units in 2013.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2022
Residents of the Park Row Building launch a rent strike over failing elevators, heat and water
Atlas Capital Group bought the building in January 2021 for about $140 million, when half of it stood vacant. By early 2022 residents were complaining that the elevators, heat, water and gas sometimes failed, and about a quarter of them stopped paying rent. The strike meant income covered only about 30 percent of the payments on a $136.5 million loan Atlas took out that year to fund improvements.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Park Row BuildingWikipedia
- The 1899 Park Row Building -- 15 Park RowDaytonian in Manhattan
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