Postcard Thursday: USS Arizona

Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the USS Arizona, which now forms the centerpiece of the memorial on Oahu.

Like many naval vessels of that era, the Arizona was manufactured right here in New York City. Here's a photo of its maiden voyage from the Brooklyn Navy Yard on June 19, 1915. She was named for what was then the newest state in the union and was officially commissioned the following year.

The shot below shows her heading up the East River and was taken sometime in 1916. Note the recently completed Municipal Building (far right), the Woolworth Building, and just to the right of the Brooklyn Bridge, the spire of the Singer Building.

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AND DON'T FORGET THIS SUNDAY: A GUIDED WALK THROUGH 400 YEARS OF NYC HISTORY DOWNTOWN Sunday, December 11, 2016 | 11am-1pm | $20 per person

Join us in early December for a walk through the heart of the Financial District. Instead of focusing on a narrow period, as we've done on some of our previous walks, this will be an architecture-heavy look at the city's history from its Dutch beginnings through to the new residential skyscrapers that are rising today. (And, yes, Alexander Hamilton will make a cameo appearance.)

From the few remaining examples of the English-colonial period to Beaux-Arts extravagance, this tour has something for everything, and the rich architectural details will be great for photographers, so bring a camera!

Only $20 per person
Please RSVP by emailing WALKNYC@GMAIL.COM with
your name
the number in your party, and
a cell number where you can be reached that day if there's a problem.

We'll send out details of where to meet to everyone who reserves.

Postcard Thursday: The Woolworth Tower

Today's postcard comes from 1919, just six years after the completion of the Woolworth Building. As the front of this unusual card notes it was "the tallest and most beautiful office building in the world."

As we write in Inside the Apple: 

Frank W. Woolworth, the inventor of the dime store in 1878 and the most revolutionary retailer in America since A.T. Stewart, had become rich off a simple notion: low prices and high volume. Not only was everything at Woolworth’s priced at either five or ten cents, all the merchandise was on display. In an era when store clerks normally had to fetch items from the back, the ability to browse store shelves gave buyers greater power over their selections. And, as Woolworth soon realized, it made them purchase more. In 1910, he added the lunch counter to a store in Manhattan—another tool to keep shoppers in the store longer and by 1911, when the Woolworth Corporation was founded, Frank Woolworth was worth millions. 

That same year, the company hired Cass Gilbert to build its new corporate headquarters on Broadway. Gilbert, who had just six years earlier finished his Beaux Arts masterpiece, the U.S. Custom House, gracefully transitioned into high-rise construction. He was one of the first New York architects to embrace the idea that tall buildings should actually look tall, and used a variety of techniques to draw the viewer’s eye from the decorated street-level entrances to the soaring tower. The window bays are separated by vertical piers that rise, almost uninterrupted, from the base to the spire. The building is faced in terra cotta that lightens toward the top of the building, emphasizing its height....

Gilbert’s use of neo-Gothic tracery (sometimes referred to as “wedding cake” Gothic) gives the building a medieval feel and, indeed, led Brooklyn minister S. Parkes Cadman to dub it “the Cathedral of Commerce” at its opening gala. Cadman was not only making a commentary on its architectural style but on the fact that in the battle between God and Mammon, Mammon appeared to be winning....

In the end, Woolworth paid about $13.5 million to build the tower out of his own deep pockets.... He was one of the first to realize the sheer publicity value of building a noteworthy skyscraper, from using its image in advertising to having postcards sent around the world showing off his creation. As with all skyscrapers claiming the title of tallest in the world, the Woolworth tower had an observation deck that drew in over a quarter million people a year until it was displaced by the Chrysler Building in 1930....(Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the government closed the observatory atop the Woolworth Building for fear that the vantage it gave of New York harbor was too strategically important. Later in the war, the copper cladding on the Woolworth’s roof was removed and melted down for the war effort; today, the building is painted green instead.)

Today, the tower of the Woolworth Building is in the final stages of being converted into condos; the observation deck is part of the $110-million penthouse, but it's unclear if it will be accessible.

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REMINDER!

RESERVATIONS ARE NOW OPEN

for our 3rd Annual Alexander Hamilton Memorial Day Weekend Walk

Read all about it and reserve at

http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2016/05/3rd-annual-alexander-hamilton-memorial.html

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Read more about NYC history in

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City