THE NINE-STORY PENTHOUSE at the iconic Woolworth Building in Lower Manhattan is expected to hit the market for a record $110 million.
The new unit is one of 34 apartments being developed by Alchemy Properties, with prices ranging from $3.5 million for a 1,200-square-foot apartment to the nearly 9,000-square-foot penthouse that will take up floors 50 to 58.
The development is particularly exciting since the famous building hasn’t undergone a major renovation since the 1970s.
Originally built in 1913, the Woolworth Building has outlived its namesake (The Woolworth Company went out of business in 1997) and housed the Irving National Exchange Bank, Columbia Records, the Witkoff Group, and many others.
Photographer Martin Doudoroff recently got a rare glimpse inside the building’s opulent lobby (visitors can also pay $15-$45 for a tour) and shared his snapshots of the atrium’s neo-Gothic details.
The building was completed in 1913 by architect Cass Gilbert, who was also responsible for the Minnesota State Capitol building, the Detroit Public Library, and the United States Supreme Court building.
The tower was commissioned by Frank W. Woolworth, the CEO of the F.W. Woolworth Company and owner of over 300 5- and 10-cent stores across the U.S., Canada, and England. He famously paid the $13.5 million in cash.
The lobby looks like a Romanesque Cathedral, with mosaics, gilded details, and a marble stairway. It was even nicknamed “the Cathedral of Commerce.”
Once the tallest skyscraper in the world, the Woolworth Building is 792 feet tall, taking up a full city block on Broadway between Park Place and Barclay Street in lower Manhattan.
The Woolworth Building in numbers: 60 floors, 15 acres of floor space, 3,000 windows, 24,000 tons of steel, 48 miles of plumbing, 17 million bricks, and 7,500 tons of terra cotta.
The lobby’s gorgeous stained glass ceiling features important dates from the Woolworth company’s history.
When it was first completed, the building’s major selling point was its amenities. The building had a shopping arcade, health club, doctor’s office, barber shop, and restaurant, as well as high-speed, innovative elevators.
There are a lot of gorgeous small details in the lobby, likes these carved faces and figures. Many of these faces were of the real workers who toiled on the building, including architect Cass Gilbert and Frank W. Woolworth.
The Woolworth Building was officially named a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and a New York City Landmark in 1983. It is still one of the 50 tallest buildings in the United States as well as one of the 20 tallest in NYC.
All interior photography by Martin Doudoroff.
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