The Benj. Guggenheim Mansion -- No. 15 East 72nd Street

As the end of the 19^th century neared, the brownstone rowhouses on East 72^nd Street off Fifth Avenue fell to be replaced by some of Manhattan’s most lavish mansions.   In 1894 Henry T. Sloane began construction of his magnificent limestone palace encompassing three building lots at Nos. 9 through 11; followed four years later by the flanking mansions of Oliver Gould Jennings at No. 7 and Benjamin Guggenheim at No. 15.

Guggenheim was one of eleven children born to Meyer and Barbara Guggenheim.  Meyer arrived in New York from Switzerland in 1847 and built an immense fortune in the mining business.   In 1885, when Benjamin was 20 years old, Meyer sent him to Colorado to take charge of mining operations there.  According to The Evening World later, “He quickly recognized the possibilities of the smelting business and induced the family to enter that line.”   By the turn of the century the Guggenheims controlled much of the American smelting and refining industry.

On October 24, 1894 the wealthy young man married Florette Seligman in Delmonico’s, deemed by The New York Times as “one of the handsomest weddings of the season.”  Florette was the youngest daughter of James Seligman, head of the banking firm J. & W. Seligman & Co.  The newspaper called her “a strikingly-handsome brunette” and added “The bridegroom is a Director in many prominent companies, and is known as the ‘Silver Prince,’ owing to his interest in several silver mines and silver smelting works.”

In reporting on the wedding and the dinner (at which 1,000 guests sat at “many small tables”), The Times remarked “The many gifts received by the bride included several checks, each representing a good-sized fortune.  Rarely have such handsome jewels, of all kinds, and in every conceivable setting, been received as gifts by one person.”

The brownstone house that Guggenheimer demolished four years later was 20-feet wide--the normal width of a Manhattan townhouse.  The architect of the new mansion would have quite the challenge in competing with the magnificent Sloane residence next door, three times the width. 

The Guggenheim house, to the right, did not attempt to compete with the lavish Jennings and Sloane mansions.

Architectural historians generally agree that it was most likely John H. Duncan who designed the Guggenheim house; although records have been lost.   Whoever it was, he opted not to compete with the Sloane mansion; but instead to set the Guggenheim house apart by its contrasting simplicity.  Dignified and elegant, it matched its neighbor in height; but relied almost solely on two floors of quiet rustication and a stone-balustraded second floor balcony for ornamentation.  While the Sloane mansion shouted display; the Guggenheim house murmured refinement.

When Benjamin and Florette moved in, their daughter Benita was three years old.  Peggy (later internationally renowned for her art collection) was born that same year; and in 1903 Barbara Hazel Guggenheim was born in the mansion.  With baby Barbara on the way, John Duncan was commissioned to construct a three-story addition to the rear of the house in 1902 at a cost of $2,000.

While most of Manhattan’s wealthiest citizens escaped the summer heat in resorts like Newport, Bar Harbor and Tuxedo; its affluent Jewish population often gathered in New Jersey.  The Guggenheims spent their summers in Long Branch, along with other Guggenheims and families like the Rothschilds.

One would expect that the curb outside would have been routinely lined with the carriages of millionaires coming and going to glittering entertainments.  But things were more subdued.  Since 1901 the Sloane mansion had been occupied by bachelor banker James Stillman (the Sloanes had a messy divorce in 1899) and the Guggenheims preferred family affairs to grand social events.

Benjamin Guggenheim in a rare posed photograph -- photograph wikipedia.org

When Florette’s father turned 80 on April 14, 1904, however, the birthday celebration was a large affair.  Even this, however, was mostly a family event.  The New York Times said that “about 100 descendants, relatives, and friends of James Seligman” attended the celebration.   And after the toasts and speeches the family opted not to have the expected opera singers or dancers as a diversion.  “Mr. Seligman returned his thanks and an entertainment proceeded, in which his children and grandchildren took part,” reported The Times.

While Florette stayed home with the young girls, Benjamin routinely traveled to Europe investigating business opportunities.  On June 2, 1908 The Evening World reported that he had just returned on the Cunard liner Mauretania.  “There is much money now going begging which is awaiting a good chance for investment, and American securities are most apt to get it,” he told reporters.

The original opening at the second floor was decidedly more French than today.  photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/East-72nd-Street-next-to-5th-Avenue.-Jennings-and-Sloane-Residence.-2F3XC5QGAI.html

In the spring of 1912 Guggenheim had completed another business trip to Europe and on April 10 he boarded the luxury steamship RMS Titanic to come home to his wife and daughters.    Five days later word reached New York that the unsinkable liner was lost.   Panicked family members crowded the White Star offices at Bowling Green seeking news of passengers.

On April 16 the New-York Tribune reported “Early this morning Samuel and Robert Guggenheim, Lewis Rothschild and Benjamin Daniels appeared at the offices, asking for news from Benjamin Guggenheim.  In the party there were also three women, who declined to give their names.  They learned nothing beyond the information given all the others during the evening—that the Carpathia way on her way here, and that neither the Virginian nor the Parisian had been heard from.”

The following day a frantic Florette Guggenheim personally made her way downtown.  “Mrs. Benjamin Guggenheim was scarcely able to stand when she entered the White Star offices this morning supported by De Witt Seligman and a maid.  She was hysterical and incoherent and again burst out into an arraignment of the line for not providing sufficient lifeboats and not sending one of its fleet to the succor of the Titanic’s passengers.”

Florette was taken to the office of Vice-President Franklin of the International Mercantile Marine, who was unable to give her any information other than hope that Guggenheim was on the Carpathia.  The Evening World said “she was barely able to totter from the place on the arm of Mr. Seligman.”

At 9:25 p.m. on April 18 the Carpathia pulled into New York harbor.  Benjamin Guggenheim was not among the survivors who filed down its gangway.  The New-York Tribune reported “A steward of the Titanic, who steered one of the boats, told of seeing Mr. Guggenheim stepping into a boat with two other men at a moment when there were no women waiting to embark.  He had not seated himself when three women came up to the boat deck.  Mr. Guggenheim arose, touched the two men on the shoulder, and motioning toward the women, calmly stepped back to the deck.  The men followed him, the women took the places, and the mining magnate took up his position beside the rail without a word.”

Apparently the grief-stricken Florette Guggenheim could not imagine living on in the mansion her husband had built for her.  Within the month she had taken the girls to live in the St. Regis Hotel.  Benjamin’s sister, Cora, who had married Louis Frank Rothschild, moved into the East 72^nd Street mansion.

Following her period of mourning, Florette turned to the social obligations of introducing 18-year old Benita to society.  On Christmas Eve 1913 she gave a debutante dance for her daughter at the St. Regis.

In the meantime, Cora Guggenheim Rothschild carried on the charitable work expected of wealthy women.  In January 1915 Andre Tridon of the French Red Cross addressed a group of socialites here regarding the organization’s war work.

Florette Guggenheim was still living at the St. Regis in August 1915 when word arrived at her attorney’s office, Seligman & Seligman.   From apparently nowhere appeared Amy Lurati of San Remo, Italy, who filed a claim against Benjamin Guggenheim’s estate for an annuity of $7,500—a substantial $180,000 a year today.

Madame Lurati, whose maiden name was the less impressive Amy Goldsmith, gave no basis for her claim other than “Mr. Guggenheim promised her the yearly allowance in a written agreement made on May 4, 1907,” reported the New-York Tribune on August 10.  Florette’s attorneys told the courts they “knew nothing about the woman in Italy or her claim.”  Among the bequeaths of more than $450,000 to charities and persons other than Florette and his daughters, Guggenheim’s will did not mention Lurati.

When the will was settled five months later, The New York Times noted “there is no mention in the report of Mme. Amy Lurati of San Remo, Italy.’

While her lawyers dealt with estate issues, Florette Guggenheim dealt with raising over privileged girls as a single mother.  In June 1915 she took them to the Gedney Farm Hotel in White Plains, New York.  Hazel was now 12 years old—the age when little girls sometimes start flexing their independence.

On the morning of June 23 Hazel had a disagreement with her mother.  “Very well,” she said, and strode out of the hotel.  Lunch time came and went and Hazel did not appear.  The New-York Tribune reported the following day “while Hazel, by her father’s will, enjoys so large an income she can say ‘very well’ to practically everybody, her mother knew she didn’t have enough with her to purchase luncheon.”

Wealthy 12-year old girls who stormed off in a huff alone were a concern for authorities.  The Sheriff was notified and a posse of 15 men began a search.  By 2:00 more than 100 persons were combing the area.

“About 5 o’clock Deputy Sheriff Moore was apprised by a chauffeur that he had seen a young girl in the woods.”  The lawman searched the area and found the headstrong Hazel.

“I don’t like it there and I just won’t go back,” she told the sheriff, stamping her foot on the ground.

Moore used “soothing phrases” for the next five minutes before finally convincing the “pouting little rich girl” to return.  It is doubtful that the New-York Tribune convinced many of its readers when it wrote “The reconciliation between Mrs. Guggenheim and Hazel was so effusive as almost to make worth while the girl’s display of willfulness.”

On June 7, 1919 the Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide reported that Florette had sold No. 15 East 72st Street.  “The house was held at about $170,000,” it said.  The purchaser was Florette’s sister-in-law and current leaser, Cora Rothschild and her family.

The Rothschilds would stay on for years seeing their daughter Muriel married to William Donald Scott on July 28, 1928.  The couple’s only other child, Louis, had died in 1902 at the age of 2.  They would live in the mansion through the 1940s, but had moved to No. 680 Madison Avenue by the time of Cora’s death at the age of 83 on December 13, 1956.  She was the last of Meyer Guggenheimer’s children.

The 72^nd Street house was now home to attorney and prosecutor John Thomas Cahill.  The son of an Irish immigrant New York City police office, Cahill rose to the position of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1939.  He sold the mansion in 1957 to Ruth Goodney.

Throughout the rest of the century the limestone mansion built by American’s tragic and heroic “Silver Prince” remained a single-family home.  Today it is owned by the Kingdom of Morraco and forms, with the Jennings and Sloane mansions, a remarkable glimpse of Manhattan’s opulent 1890s off Central Park.

photographs by the author

Manhattan and the Time-Ball



The world's first time-ball, built in 1833, sits atop the Royal Observatory in Greenwich -- photo by Jake Keup


Victorians had a problem when it came to their watches: How could you be sure your watch was accurate?

Before satellites or digital technology a slow watch could gradually become significantly off by ten minutes or more within just a few days. How could a railroad engineer make sure he was on schedule and, if he was, how could a passenger be positive he would arrive at the station on time?

The problem was acerbated by major cities running on their own time. Because of its more westerly location, noon in Savannah came 24 minutes later than it did in Washington DC.  Railroads in the United States pushed for standardized national time system as late as 1883; the companies arguing that such a system would simplify schedules and preclude train collisions.

One Georgia citizen was incensed at the idea, writing to the Savannah Morning News “The railroads can’t stop the sun, and they can’t dictate to the working world when it shall be 7 o’clock in the morning or 6 o’clock at night.”

But slight differences in time could not be tolerated by sailors. Navigation was dependent on accurate timepieces. If chronometers were inaccurate by only a few minutes, a course deviation of hundreds of miles could result.

To fix the problem the time-ball was invented.

British sea captain Robert Wauchope came up with the idea in 1818 and 15 years later passed along his perfected notion to the Admiralty, suggesting that a time-ball be erected in Greenwich.

The concept was, in fact, quite simple. A lightweight leather-covered wooden ball with a 20-foot flagstaff running through its center would be erected on a tall building. The ball would rise to the top by the use of halyards where an electro-magnet held the ball in place. When the ball-keeper received the signal announcing the precise time, he would interrupt the current and the ball would drop.

Anyone watching the ball could adjust their timepieces as the ball fell.

In October 1833 the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty gave notice that “a time-ball will henceforth be dropped, every day, from the top of a pole on the Eastern turret of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, at the moment of one o’clock PM mean solar time.”

To give mariners ample time to prepare, the ball was hoisted half-way up the pole at five minutes as a warning. Three minutes later it rose to the top signaling that the ball drop was imminent.

Time-balls began appearing across the globe. They necessarily were associated with an observatory or connected to one by telegraph in order to discern the exact time.

When the British Government opened a hospital for sick seamen on the Island of St. Helena in 1856, it included “a Time-ball office for rating and correcting ships’ chronometers, at which the ball drops twice daily for the benefit of the shipping.” The Observatory overlooking Sydney Harbour in Australia was built in 1855 specifically to house the time-ball that fell for the first time in 1858.

A time-ball sits above a two-story building in Wellington Harbor, New Zealand

But while major towns and ports of call were installing time-balls American cities were not among them. In 1859 Taliaferro Preston Shaffner in his The Telegraph Manual complained “In America, we have a National Observatory, and though it has had but a few years’ existence, its fame has spread throughout the civilized world, and added new luster to our glory; but we have no time-balls in our maritime cities, to indicate the hour and the movement of the pendulum at Washington in our National Observatory.” Frustrated, he point out that in England where several time-balls had been installed “Persons can regulate their own timepieces, without the aid of the watchmaker.”

The 1855 time-ball in Deal, Kent, England

Finally in September 1877 New Yorkers had their own time-ball.  Western Union employee George M. Phelps designed and built a ball made of semicircular sheets of copper.  The sheets, some of which were crescents, reduced wind resistance.

The ball was installed on the top of the Western Union Building at 195 Broadway.  The ten-story building was, at the time, the tallest building in the city.  New Yorkers for blocks around could see the ball and easily adjust their watches.

As with most time-balls, it was hoisted partway up the staff at five minutes before the hour and all the way at two minutes before.  A signal from the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington DC would drop the ball precisely at noon.  In the days before time zones, New York's ball would drop fully 12 minutes before the one in Washington in order to account for longitudinal differences.

By 1881 the U.S. finally had a few time-balls and the Western Union Telegraph Company of New York launched an investigation to test the accuracy of the device. According to S. P. Langley, Director of the Observatory in Washington D. C. on June 5 of that year, after a daily comparison of three separate locations and times, “The mean error of dropping such a time-ball here through the year would be less than one second.”

Time-balls were becoming indispensable, cropping up in the Cape of Good Hope, Madras, Bombay, New Zealand, Brighton and Washington DC.

Williamstown, Australia had a time-ball by 1861.

Adolph Ochs stole the time-ball idea for a marketing scheme. Ochs was the owner of The New York Times and in 1904, the year the newspaper opened its new Times Square headquarters, he put on a fireworks display at midnight on New Year’s Eve to show off his new building.  With around 200,000 people crowding into the Square, it was the beginning of a New York tradition.

But Ochs wanted something new and more iconic. For the 1907 celebration he had the firm’s chief electrician Walter F. Palmer build a lit time-ball that would drop from a flagpole at midnight from the top of One Times Square.  And with that another tradition was born.

By 1912 the Western Union Buildling had been dwarfed by skyscrapers rising around it.  The time-ball was obscured and ceased operation.  A new time-ball was badly needed.

When the RMS Titanic sank in April of that year, citizens of New York erected a monument in the form of a lighthouse in memory of the victims.  Included in the design was, finally, a time-ball for New York Harbor.

The lighthouse and time-ball were erected in 1913 at the top of the Seamen’s Church Institute Building on South Street. The ball was gilded to catch the sun and was dropped precisely at noon upon a signal from the Western Union offices– unlike many of the time-balls, such as the one in Greenwich, which dropped at 1:00.

After a year without one, New York harbor had a time-ball.

The Titanic Memorial Lighthouse and Time-Ball -- NYPL Collection

The ball dropped every day for decades, precisely at 12:00 noon. On March 1, 1962, however, it dropped twice. No sooner had the ball reached the bottom of the pole that day than it was quickly hoisted up again.

At 12:05 it was dropped again to signal the official start of the ticker-tape parade up Broadway honoring astronaut Lt. Col. John H. Glenn, Jr. The New York Times remarked that “None of the historians at the South Street institution could recall that the ball had ever done double duty before.”

Only six years later the Seamen’s Institute building was demolished and the lighthouse and time-ball were removed to South Street Seaport where neither functions.

The Times Square time-ball still drops, of course, every New Year’s Eve at midnight. However it is not recognized as a functioning time-ball because it does not do (and never has done) daily duty.

Manhattan's remaining functioning time-ball does not get official recognition due to its infrequent schedule.

Only four time-balls remain functioning world-wide since the historic tower of the Lyttelton Timeball Station in New Zealand was destroyed by the earthquake of June 2011.

The historic time-ball tower Christchurch, New Zealand was destroyed in 2011.

The 1913 RMS Titanic Memorial Lighthouse -- South Street Seaport

No longer a working lighthouse and no longer on its lofty perch, the Titanic Memorial is largely overlooked by tourists and New Yorkers alike -- photo by Alice Lum

As the devastating news of the sinking of the RMS Titanic flashed across the news wires on April 15, 1912 the entire world was thrust into shock and mourning.  But the grief was perhaps especially felt in New York City.

On Thursday, April 18, instead of the proud Titanic, it was the Carpathia that steamed into New York harbor.  Aboard were the dazed survivors.  As the city scurried to provide for them, citizens were stunned to hear of the deaths of prominent New Yorkers like Isadore Strauss, co-owner of Macy’s, and his wife Ida; John Jacob Astor IV and Benjamin Guggenheim.

Soon memorial services were held across the city at sites like Trinity Church, St. Paul’s Chapel and the Seamen’s Friend Society.  Donations for survivors’ relief poured in.

But these passing gestures were not enough.

Within a week the Seamen’s Benefit Society announced its idea of a permanent memorial in the form of a lighthouse on their new Seamen’s Institute at the corner of Coenties Slip and South Street.  It would be a traditional lighthouse with a green, fixed lantern to shine over the harbor where the Titanic was intended to arrive. Surmounting it, a time-ball was proposed that would fall precisely at noon daily.

The announcement said “It will be given in memory of the engineers who sent their stokers up while they went to certain death; the members of the heroic band who played while the water crept up to their instruments, and of the officers and crew who put duty ahead of personal safety. It will be given in memory of those in the steerage who perished without ever realizing their hopes of the new land, the America of endless possibilities.

“It will be given in memory of all the heroic deeds by first and second cabin passengers. In short, it will be a monument to every person, without regard to rank, race, creed, or color, whose life went down when the giant vessel slipped beneath the waves.”

A loosely-formed committee composed entirely of women, with the exception of Dr. George F. Kunz, President of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, came together to form the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse Fund.  Among the well-known socialites were Mrs. Jacob H. Schiff, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Mrs. Frederick Vanderbilt, Mrs. William D. Sloane and Mrs. J. Borden Harriman.  Mrs. Schiff opened her purse as the first subscriber to the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse Fund with a $500 donation towards the estimated $10,000 cost.

Not everyone was sold on the lighthouse idea. Mayor Gaynor convened a meeting in his office on May 14 of notable citizens--none of whom were women. Bishop David H. Greer said it “should be a thing of beauty” similar to the General Sherman statue at Central Park.  Someone else recommended a memorial within the Park.  While one person agreed with the lighthouse idea, he felt it should be “built at some perilous point on the coast, to be illuminated by a powerful searchlight, and with a great fog horn that could be heard for miles.”

Joseph H. Choate suggested that a committee of thirty men be formed to take up the project. President Taft sent his wishes to be included on the committee.  Two weeks later that committee met in a heated debate over the memorial. One member made no fewer than 18 speeches in an attempt to sway the committee. Bishop Greer was against the lighthouse, saying the memorial should be “artistic rather than utilitarian.”

Henry Clews arrived with his own rough sketch of the monument that he personally designed. It depicted the large ocean liner and an equally large iceberg. Edmund L. Baylies and Frank Damrosch pushed for the lighthouse “far out in the bay.”  Henry R. Towns chimed in insisting that “it should be the largest lighthouse in the world, one which might be seen from the lower bay for fifty or seventy five miles,” as recapped in The New York Times.

In the end the original idea offered by the Seamen’s Benefit Society won out.

Donations flowed in and by June $7,000 had been received. In the meantime the new 12-story Seamen’s Church Institute building was rising in Jeanette Park. Within the year it would be completed along with the memorial lighthouse atop it.

On the first anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, the lighthouse was dedicated. The US Government gave permission for the green light rather than the typical red. The Nautical Gazette explained “as this color is not used by any lighthouse on the coast, the memorial-tower lantern will be a particularly distinctive one.” The beacon could be seen as far as Sandy Hook, New Jersey, 40 miles away.

High above South Street was the Titanic Memorial Lighthouse with its gilded time-ball -- NYPL Collection

Atop the lighthouse was the gilded time ball. A mechanism connected the Western Union offices by a wire that ran through the subway tunnels. At five minutes before noon each day a signal was received and the ball rose to the top of its rod. Precisely at twelve another signal triggered the ball to drop. The telegraph company provided the service for $72 per year providing that the instrument was kept in working order.

The Times remarked that “the man in the street will adjust his watch, the sailor in the harbor will set his chronometer, and the binoculars at Sandy Hook will be trained on the glinting flash. And how many in the throng will remember, as they look, that once on a midsummer night a boat called the Titanic sank to the bottom of the sea carrying her freight of human cargo with her?”

The memorial lighthouse as seen from the roof -- postcard from author's collection

The lighthouse stood atop the Seamen’s Church Institute building, shining its green light and dropping its noontime ball for decades. Then in July of 1968 the Seamen’s Church Institute relocated to its new site at 15 State Street.  The old building was slated for demolition.

The Kaiser-Nelson Steel and Salvage Corporation, which had contracted for the salvage, donated the historic lighthouse to the South Street Seaport Museum. The museum constructed a park at Fulton and Water Streets with a $200,000 donation from the Exxon Corporation and, in May 1976 the lighthouse was erected there.

Photo by Alice Lum

The 60-foot lighthouse looks somewhat out of place today. Its green lantern is dark and the time-ball no longer falls at noon. But tourists and New Yorkers alike pause occasionally to read the bronze plaque there and realize its original purpose.  For, as The Lookout magazine said in 1913, “in a busy, careless city the average person so soon forgets.”

Titanic to Dot-Com - The Bowling Green Offices Building 5-11 Broadway

Bowling Green Offices Building 1900 -- NYPL Collection

On the afternoon of January 23, 1909 nervous relatives and friends of passengers on the White Star Line’s "The Republic" crowded into 11 Broadway, the steamship company’s offices. Sketchy reports had been received that The Republic had been rammed in the fog 26 miles off Nantucket by the Italian liner, "Florida." The New York Times’ headline told the story: “Throng at White Star Office Seeking Information on Loved Ones in Danger.”

All passengers were transferred to another ship and were safe; however the incident was a haunting precursor to a coming disaster.

The building where the White Star Line did business was relatively new. As the 19th Century ground to a close, the New York Central and Harlem River Railroad Company’s freight depot sat across from Bowling Green at the base of Broadway where, years earlier, the Atlantic Gardens, a Victorian amusement spot had stood.

In 1895 Stacy C. Richmond purchased the site and, with four other businessmen, formed the Broadway Realty Company with intentions of erecting a major office building. To design it, the group commissioned the relatively unknown architectural firm of W. & G. Audsley – two Scottish brothers, William James and George Ashdown, who had immigrated from London three years earlier.

The developers wanted a state-of-the art show-stopper. When it was completed three years and $1.8 million later in 1898, it was exactly that. With an imposing gray granite base, the white brick Bowling Green Building Offices Building at 5-11 Broadway rose 16 stories above the park. White terra cotta ornamentation graced the façade, termed “Hellenic Renaissance” by the Audsleys. It was, they said, “a free but pure treatment of ancient Greek architecture.” A central court provided ventilation and light; and the latest conveniences such as electricity and elevators quickly attracted tenants. On the upper floors were a restaurant and private sleeping quarters with sweeping views of the harbor.

Because of its location at the base of “Steamship Row” and its convenient proximity to The Customs House, the building filled with steamship companies and related businesses; The White Star Line, The American Line, The Merchant Marine Committee of the Whole and the offices of the U.S. Navy’s Supervisor of Shipbuilding, were early tenants.

Representing non-steamship concerns was the office of The Central Council of the National Sound Money League. Here, on March 28, 1899, representatives nationwide met to vote on the proposed gold standard for the dollar. In 1906, the Erie Railroad Company took the third through fifth floors – approximately 76,000 square feet of office space.

Bowling Green Offices Building - 1918

At 8:20 pm on April 12, 1912, only three years after the scare of "The Republic," The White Star Line announced that the largest ocean liner in the world, "The Titanic," had struck an iceberg and sunk. On April 17 The New York Times reported “From early dawn yesterday until early this morning The White Star offices in Bowling Green were besieged by relatives and friends of persons known to be on the ill-fated Titanic. It was an orderly but pathetic crowd of men and women, and there was not a moment when a tear-stained face was not scanning anxiously the printed lists of known survivors that were posted on the bulletin board.”

The White Star offices were crowded “from booking rail to booking rail” and the park across the street was filled with agonized friends and relatives.

“The crowd increased in size so rapidly,” said The Times, “that the four policemen detailed to duty in front of the steamship offices asked for reinforcements. Two mounted policemen were then ordered to duty in front of the offices…”

Three years later, on September 3, 1915, seven elevators simultaneously fell within the Bowling Green Offices, “creating a panic and giving their passengers a bad shaking up,” as reported in the newspapers. Seven months later, in April, four elevators plummeted again.

“More the twenty persons, most of them women, were badly frightened, and Isaac Liebman of 411 Christopher Avenue, East New York, suffered a broken leg,” said The New York Times. The newspaper blamed Liebman for his injury, saying that the elevator operator, when he realized the cab was falling, instructed the passengers “to bend their knees so as to neutralize the shock when the car reach the bottom. Liebman was the only one who did not follow his advice.”

Between 1919 and 1920, a four-story tower was added, designed by Ludlow & Peabody. The firm’s design, so conscientiously sympathetic to the original, is imperceptible.

Towards the end of the 20th Century the hulking building showed its age. Although stock speculator Ivan F. Boesky, who would end his career in disgrace, held 9500 square feet of office space; high-end tenants were moving out. Within a few years the Bowling Green Offices Building would have a mere 10 percent occupancy rate.

Things changed, though, as dot-com businesses sprang up. By early 2000 the building was 98 percent filled; mostly with new internet firms like Commissioner.com, WealthHound.com, Moving.com, and Stockback. Rents more than doubled and the address has regained its lost prestige.

The Bowling Green Offices Building anchors Broadway in what the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission termed “An enormous and beautifully-crafted presence.”
 
 
 
 
 
Photo wirednewyork.com