Equal Time For The Ungainly

I was going to title this “equal time for the ugly” but that seems overly harsh for a building that was never much loved and has been gone for nearly as long as it existed. I’ve mentioned the City Investing Building almost every time I’ve mentioned Singer, because it’s almost impossible not to: the two were immediately adjacent to one another and City Investing was one of the tallest buildings in New York at the time that Singer was the tallest. Every photo of Singer shows City Investing, so even though the latter is not well known today, it’s often seen as “that ugly thing blocking the view of Singer.” I mentioned earlier how popular it was to make small books celebrating your new building; today’s images come from The City Investing Building, published in 1908. The title page is actually worth showing, as it explains a bit about the meaning of the book:

The “LC” is a library mark: this copy was digitized from the collection at the Library of Congress. The copyright notice tells you who wanted this book made and it’s the “Broadway-Cortlandt Co.”, AKA the developer and owner of the building. If there was any question as to whether this was simply an informational book about a huge new building or a marketing tool, I hope that settles it. So in that context, let’s look at the bigger type. The reason for using “V” rather than “U” in modern times is that it’s a lot easier to carve into stone. Any number of building names were written that way on the building. There’s no reason to do so in printing, and the letter U is used lower down the page from BVILDING…the first time just two lines lower. This was done, I expect, to add gravitas. Francis Kimball was a successful architect for office buildings in New York, and had designed 111 and 115 Broadway, two short blocks away, in a similar style. “Fireproof” was an obvious selling point, distinguishing a modern building from the older commercial buildings downtown. And finally, April occupancy was a big deal because the New York tradition of leases beginning on May 1 extended, to some degree, to commercial space. On to the physical building…here’s a plan from the mid-rise elevator portion of the typical floors:

The area at the south side (the top) measuring 41′-6″ x 25′-3″ is where the low-rise elevators were on the lower floors. The F plan is why the building looks so odd: it’s not in any way symmetrical and doesn’t come from any practical architectural function. It’s the outcome of real-estate values. Everything to the south (up) was controlled by Singer and became the funny-shaped base of the Singer’s three combined buildings. (At Singer, the funny shape ended at the 14th floor, leaving the tower clear above.) The northeast corner, at the lower left, was the old building seen in the top illustration, a hold-out that didn’t become part of the property assemblage because the Broadway street front was just too valuable to give up. With that lot, City Investing could have had an E plan, and a little more dignity.

Tomorrow: why that plan above is interesting in a good way.