Bayard–Condict Building
65 Bleecker Street | NoHo | built 1899
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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.
- 1897
United Loan files plans for the Bayard Building before the old bank is torn down
The Bleecker Street lot belonged to the Bank for Savings until the United Loan and Investment Company bought it in 1897. Robert Avery, the company's president, handled the paperwork and filed plans for a twelve-story building on September 17, only three days after the sale was recorded. Demolition of the old bank building had not yet started. The new tower was to be called the Bayard Building.
- 1897
City building officials force Sullivan to drop his slim column frame and thicken the walls
Sullivan's plans called for the Gray system, a freestanding steel frame of 14-inch columns, and brick walls a uniform 12 inches thick. The city's Building Department, with its restrictive policies, forced the frame to be abandoned. The walls were built 20 inches thick up to the fifth floor, 16 to the ninth and 12 above, and the ground-floor columns are 24 inches across. The changes affected usable floor space and set the developer back financially, even though construction began in December 1897 before every dispute was settled.
- 1897
Louis Sullivan designs his only New York building on Bleecker Street
Chicago architect Louis Sullivan, working with local architect Lyndon P. Smith, designs a terra-cotta-clad skyscraper for the United Loan and Investment Company at 65 Bleecker Street. Ground is broken in December 1897 for what becomes Sullivan's sole building in New York City, embodying his philosophy that form follows function.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1898
A magazine drawing shows the cornice angels long before the Condicts own the building
Silas Condict's son said many years later that the six winged angels under the cornice were his father's idea, a reminder to tenants to deal fairly with others on the six business days of the week. The Landmarks Preservation Commission's report points out that the Condicts took the building only about six months before it was finished, and a rendering in Brickbuilder magazine in June 1898 already showed the winged figures. Sullivan had used the same motif at the 1893 Chicago world's fair and in an unbuilt 1895 design for a St. Louis bank.
“…a rendering of the building, published in the Brickbuilder in June 1898 already showed the winged figures…”
- 1899
A terra-cotta contractor buys the unfinished tower at a foreclosure auction
The Bank for Savings began foreclosure proceedings on the property in December 1898. The winning bidder at the April 1899 auction, who paid $327,000, was Charles W. Rice, one of the building's material contractors, of the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company. He bought it to satisfy $150,000 in liens, and the sale wiped out United Loan's investment. By June 1899 the building had passed to Emmeline G. H. Condict.
“Charles W. Rice of the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Company acquired the building at a foreclosure auction for $327,000…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1899
The tower is finished as the Condict Building, then regains the Bayard name
The unfinished tower passes to Emmeline and Silas Condict in June 1899 after the Bank for Savings recalls its mortgage. They complete the building that December and call it the Condict Building. Builder Charles T. Wills buys it in May 1900, and it becomes the Bayard Building again.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1900
A fire badly damages the tenth floor, and the Condicts sell two months later
A fire in March 1900 severely damaged the tenth floor of the Condict Building. That May the Condict family sold the tower to Charles T. Wills, the man who had built it. The Wills estate kept the building until January 1920, when it sold it to Heidelberg, Wolff & Co. for $450,000.
“The tenth floor was severely damaged in a fire in March 1900, and the Condict family sold the building that May…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1900
French writer Jean Schopfer calls the building the best skyscraper yet erected
In 1900 the French writer Jean Schopfer, describing the architecture of New York, ranked the Bayard Building as the best skyscraper then built. That October the magazine American Architect and Building News published two illustrations of it under the Condict name. The Landmarks Preservation Commission notes that Eastern critics took little notice of Sullivan until this building gave them a close look at his skyscraper methods.
- 1964
Ivan Karp's Anonymous Arts Recovery Society saves the last Sullivan column capitals from the wrecker
In October 1964 the owner, Elgin Shulsky, was replacing the ground-floor storefronts with aluminum ones designed by the architect Gustave W. Iser. The Anonymous Arts Recovery Society, led by Ivan Karp, came to 65 Bleecker Street to rescue the last of the building's 66-year-old column capitals before the wrecker took them, and the pieces were headed for a museum. Cinder block and plaster had already covered the capitals at the end of the 1940s.
Source: The New York Times
- 1975
The city designates the Bayard-Condict Building a landmark
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designates 65 Bleecker Street a city landmark in 1975, and the building becomes a National Historic Landmark the following year. It is Louis Sullivan's only New York design and is built in the Chicago School style.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1976
Preservationist Carolyn Pitts quietly files a National Historic Landmark nomination over the owners' objections
After the city landmarked the building in 1975, the Shulsky family sued the Landmarks Commission, arguing that hardly anyone knew the building existed. The owners objected again in 1976 when preservationist Carolyn Pitts proposed it for National Historic Landmark status. Though they called the building run-down and undistinguished, Pitts quietly wrote a report and sent it to the Department of the Interior, which approved the nomination that same year.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2003
A facade restoration repairs thousands of terra-cotta tiles
Wank Adams Slavin Associates, hired by the owners in 1996, completes the restoration of the white terra-cotta facade in 2003. Each of the roughly 7,000 tiles is inspected, and about 1,300 damaged ones are removed, with all but 30 repaired and reinstalled. The project wins the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation's annual restoration award.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- Bayard–Condict BuildingWikipedia
- Louis Sullivan's 1899 Bayard-Condict Building - 65 Bleecker StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
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