AWNINGS FOR DECKS

Midtown West, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

The A.T. Demarest & Company and Peerless Motor Car Company Buildings, located in the heart of the "Automobile Row" section of Broadway in Manhattan, were used by the automobile industry for over six decades. They were constructed in 1909 to the designs of eminent architect Francis H. Kimball, in collaboration with consulting engineer Purdy & Henderson and George A. Fuller Co., builders. Kimball had emerged in the forefront of early skyscraper design in New York City, particularly during his collaboration with G. Kramer Thompson in 1892-98. A.T. Demarest & Co., started in 1860 by Aaron T. Demarest, was a carriage manufacturer that also ventured into the production of automobile bodies around 1902. The Peerless Motor Car Co. of New York was a branch of the Cleveland luxury automobile manufacturing firm.

Though architecturally harmonious, the two buildings were constructed separately for these firms - the Peerless building was L-shaped in plan and wrapped around the corner Demarest building - and have subtly different ornamental schemes. Incorporating neo- Gothic and neo-Romanesque stylistic references, they were designed to relate to the mammoth neo-Gothic style Broadway Tabernacle then located next door to the south. Kimball employed the technology of contemporary skyscrapers for these buildings. Nine stories in height (plus a partial tenth story and two-storv tower on the Peerless building), they are of steel-frame curtain wall construction above concrete piers and are almost entirely clad on the principal facades in white matt glazed terra cotta (now painted) manufactured by the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co., the only major architectural terra cotta firm in New York City. This represents an early and significant use of terra-cotta cladding for tall buildings in New York.

These buildings had ground-story automobile and carriage showrooms (among the earliest surviving in New York), with repair shops and warerooms above. Both structures were acquired in 1918 and combined into one office building by the recently-formed General Motors Corporation for its initial major corporate headquarters. The building was used by General Motors for over fifty years, until its purchase in 1977 by the Hearst Corporation to house offices of its Hearst Magazines division.

DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS

Automobile Row

The American automobile, or "horseless carriage," was initially manufactured in the 1890s as a luxury item. In 1902, there were a dozen "significant producers" of automobiles in the United States. Three dozen new automobile manufacturers, including a number of former carriage and bicycle companies, had joined the marketplace by 1907, but several firms had failed. Henry Ford, among others, worked on the mass production of automobiles, thus enabling costs to be lowered around 1910. By the 1920s, there were forty-four American automobile manufacturers, but 125 firms had failed and the median longevity of these firms was only seven years. The industry would eventually be monopolized by a few large corporations concentrated in Michigan.

Rider's New York City guidebook in 1923 observed that Broadway, from the high West 40s "to approximately 66" St. is the section popularly known as 'Automobile Row,' comprising the New York sales rooms of the leading automobile manufacturers, tire makers and dealers in special automobile parts or accessories." This was actually a northern continuation along Broadway of the horse, carriage, and harness businesses that had been located around Longacre (later Times) Square since the late- nineteenth century. As early as 1907, the New York Times remarked of this segment of Broadway that "it would certainly be difficult to recall any industry which has within so brief a period given so much new life to an entire section as has the automobile trade... Land values have at least doubled within the last five or six years..." By 1910, there were dozens of automobile-related businesses, including many small automobile or body manufacturers, lining Broadway particularly between West 48lh Street and Columbus Circle. Many of these businesses were located in structures built specifically for their automobile-related uses into the 1920s, including: Studebaker Brothers Co. Building (1902, James Brown Lord; demolished), No. 1600, a factory-office structure for the manufacture of wagons, carriages, automobiles, and trucks; A.T. Demarest & Company and Peerless Motor Car Company Buildings (1909, Francis H. Kimball), Nos. 1770 and 1760; United States Rubber Co. Building (1911-12, Carrere & Hastings), No. 1784- 1790; Ford Motor Co. Building (1917, Albert Kahn), No. 1710; Fisk Rubber Co. Building (1921, Can ere & Hastings and R.H. Shreve), No. 1765-1767; and General Motors Corp. Building (1926-27, Shreve & Lamb), No. 1769-1787, which was built above the e

Hunts Point, Bronx

The American Bank Note Company Printing Plant, designed by the architectural firm Kirby, Petit & Green, was an important symbol of progress for the prominent securities printing firm. The leading producer of money, securities, and other types of printed and engraved products, the American Bank Note Company constructed the plant during a period when it restructured its management and expanded its production facilities. Occupying a prominent location near major transportation routes in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx, the American Bank Note Company Printing Plant has been a neighborhood focal point since its completion in 1911.

Architecturally, the American Bank Note Company Printing Plant recalls a time when the emerging discipline of industrial engineering was beginning to be incorporated into the exterior expression of new industrial facilities. The form of the American Bank Note Company plant, for example, which consists of a low pressroom wing adjacent to a taller “office,” was designed to accommodate a newly-engineered production line, in addition to an engraving department, similar to other printing plants of the era. Signature elements of industrial architecture, such as the saw-tooth roof and large expanses of industrial sash, allowed ample light into the interior spaces of the plant, aiding both the fine work done in the pressrooms and the meticulous hand work of the engravers. The arsenal-like exterior of the plant, which is surrounded by a brick wall, embodied a sense of strength while also providing security for the specialized printing operation.

The crenellated rectangular tower rising above the Lafayette Avenue wing and the articulation of the walls as massive brick piers forming multi-story arcades reinforced this fortress-like character. Such an expressive approach to industrial architecture would later be abandoned for a more severe, functional aesthetic. Upon completion, the American Bank Note Company Printing Plant was considered one of the most complete facilities of its kind, remaining in operation for nearly 75 years. Today, the expressive and monumental structure continues to serve as an important visual landmark for the Hunts Point neighborhood.

The Early Twentieth Century Development of Hunts Point

Hunts Point, along with Clason’s Point, Screvin’s Neck, and Throg’s Neck, is one of several large salt meadowland peninsulas in the Bronx which jut into the East River. Until the Civil War, Hunts Point was characterized as a rural area where prominent businessmen maintained country estates. As with many New York City neighborhoods, the creation and availability of transit routes to the Hunts Point area in the early twentieth century helped initiate development of the once-remote area. The opening of the extension of the West Side IRT subway into the Bronx in 1904 helped bring about a period of feverish land speculation southeast of Westchester Avenue near the transit line. The opening of the Intervale Avenue subway station in 1910, in particular, has been an acknowledged impetus for development near Hunts Point. The Hunts Point station of the New Haven Railroad, Harlem River branch, which had opened in the 1850s, began serving the area as a station of the New York, Westchester and Boston Railway line after 1912.

In addition to increased transportation options, local boosters could point to the many advantages the South Bronx offered to industry, including the excellent rail service and freight terminals of several major lines that provided the means for transporting raw materials, supplies, and finished products conveniently. There were ample sites for building in the vicinity of the waterfront or adjacent to rail lines, and the power to operate facilities was relatively inexpensive because of the easy access to coal deliveries. The growing local labor force could be supplemented by workers traveling to the Bronx via the rail and transit lines. In 1909, there were 700 factories in the Bronx; by 1912, the number of industrial operations in the borough had more than doubled. By the close of the first decade of the twentieth century, the local real estate press enthused that “a great city [was] building along Southern Boulevard.”

At the start of the twentieth century, most of the Hunts Point area was controlled by a small number of real estate developers, including George F. Johnson and James F. Meehan, who were developing elevator apartment houses, flats, and semi-detached houses near the subway stop.3 In 1908, the American Bank Note Company purchased from George F. Johnson a large tract of land on which the “Old Faile mansion” stood. Although change was already underway in Hunts Point at the time the American Bank Note Company purchased its property, the real estate industry considered that sale to be another great impetus for future development in the area.

Not only would the siting of the plant in Hunts Point help encourage other firms to consider t