20. Beaver Building (redux)

AKA: 1 Wall Street Court; The Cocoa Exchange
Location: 82-92 Beaver Street
Built: 1904
Architect: Clinton and Russell
National Register Number: 05000668
Listed: July 6, 2005
Visited: September 7, 2007; January 10, 2010



I return to the Beaver Building. It had been obscured by scaffolds and netting since I started this blog back in 2007, and throughout the next year and half, I kept returning to it expecting it to be free of obstruction. No luck. Odd, considering that it had been renovated in 1985, and I thought apartments were already being made available in 2006. Also odd: I never actually saw anyone human beings working on the building. (Something may or may not have happened to the ownership of the building in the last few years; cocoany.com, its dedicated website, is now subject to cybersquatting.) Well, imagine my surprise when, coming back from the IKEA ferry last year, I noticed it was unmasked.



Subjects for further research: When did New Yorkers begin to consider the upward gaze something only tourists do? Was there some relationship between the hostility towards looking up and the way buildings in New York were designed? Didn't the International Style, especially in its latter-day stages, enforce this kind of jadedness by giving us lots of buildings with so few particulars for the eye to fixate on? (By the way—if we consider skyscraper-gawking tacky, shouldn't we hate on the whole ideal of apartments with "nice views" ?)

The Beaver Building, with its old-school tripartite structure (analogizing the base-shaft-capital of columns) and polychrome terra cotta detailing on top, was obviously built under the assumption that people wouldn't feel embarrassed looking up at it; indeed, with the Third Avenue El running past it on Pearl Street, it must've had something of a captive audience, giving it a life in people's minds beyond "the flatiron that's not the Delmonico's building, oh, I get them so confused."

41c. Wall Street Historic District

Location: Roughly bounded by Cedar Street, Maiden Lane, Pearl Street, Bridge Street, South William Street, Greenwich Street, and Trinity Place.
Built: N/A
Architect: N/A
National Register Number: 07000063
Listed: February 2, 2007
Visited: December 30, 2007



An art deco hypodermic needle. According to Emporis, the American International Building (Clinton & Russell and Holton & George, 1932) is tallest building in downtown Manhattan, the fifth tallest in New York City, sixteenth tallest in the United States, and forty-seventh worldwide. One short block away from Wall Street, it is nonetheless on the periphery of the neighborhood. Its entrance on the Pine Street side is typically in shadow, and save for a lone security guard who makes me kinda skittish about taking pictures of the place, curiously free of activity, even in the middle of a weekday. Should they re-open their observation deck, I suspect that would change, but it'll never happen. Just looking at those gorgeous but relatively unprotected decks that ring the top gives me the willikers, and you gotta figure the building's current tenant, the country's biggest insurance company, must feel the same way.

29. Broad Exchange Building

AKA: 25 Broad Street; The Exchange at 25
Location: 25 Broad Street
Built: 1902
Architect: Clinton & Russell
National Register Number: 98000366
Listed: April 13, 1998
Visited: September 28 and October 15, 2007



Another recent condo conversion. I feel bad about not having much of an opinion about it. A wing was recently de-landmarked by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, allowing Swig Equities to demolish it and transfer its air rights to a new building to be built on 45 Broad Street. In turn, this lets 45 Broad have twelve more stories than initially planned. Going higher means better views means pricier apartments, after all. I'm totally cynical about this equation because I'm cynical about the worth of good views; I wholeheartedly agree with Christopher Alexander's observation that a well-designed building conserves its views rather than leaves them gaping and unavoidable. Not that Alexander's insight necessarily applies here: when I'm in another cynical snit, I wonder if anybody who'd buy into 45 Broad would actually live there long enough to get bored by it. Maybe all they're looking for are pied-à-terres, albeit unfathomably expensive ones.

25 Broad comes with a snazzy website (that I'm not linking to, sorry) whose message seems to be less "this is such an awesome place to live" and more "this is gonna be such an awesome investment." An awesome investment because one day all the cranes and construction workers and dust and debris will go away and we'll have a new World Trade Center and a new Fulton Street Transit Center and and and everyone will want a piece of the action and your property's value will reach unheretofore seen heights. Though I'd sure like to what feat of magic will turn these limestone canyons and these streets, so bone-dry after dark, into an actual neighborhood filled with people who do things people in neighborhoods do. Right now groceries, hardware, cultural amusements, etc. all require something of a trek; though, again, that inconvenient fact may not make much of a difference to those who can afford assistants to fetch silk pajamas and aubergines at a whim's notice.



God, enough with the attitude already, Mike. OK, can't say nothing bad about the building. Hell, it probably is an awesome place to live. Look at that entrance, that nice entrance with the Doric columns. Nice amenities, it seems. I could sure use a resident-only health club. I could even use a health club. I don't really need a neighborhood filled with people because I hate people anyway. Nyeah.

20. Beaver Building

AKA: 1 Wall Street Court; The Cocoa Exchange
Location: 82-92 Beaver Street
Built: 1904
Architect: Clinton and Russell
National Register Number: 05000668
Listed: July 6, 2005
Visited: September 7, 2007



Uh...oh well.

I'll have to come back to this one next year. Not sure why this one's under wraps -- you'd figure that whatever needs to be done to the building, whether light cleaning ormajor structural work, would've been taken care of when they converted the building into condos last year.

Oh, damn, they had an open house. I should really keep my eye out for these things.