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|references = }} The Woolworth Building, at 233 Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, designed by architect Cass Gilbert and completed in 1913, is an early US skyscraper. The original site for the building was purchased by F. W. Woolworth and his real estate agent Edward J. Hogan by April 15, 1910, from the Trenor Luther Park Estate and other owners for $1.65 million. By January 18, 1911, Woolworth and Hogan had acquired the final site for the project, totaling $4.5 million. More than a century after the start of its construction, it remains, at , one of the one-hundred tallest buildings in the United States as well as one of the twenty tallest buildings in New York City. It has been a National Historic Landmark since 1966, and a New York City landmark since 1983.〔, p. 25.〕 ==Architecture== The Woolworth Building was designed in the neo-Gothic style by the architect Cass Gilbert, whom Frank Woolworth commissioned in 1910 to design a 20-story office building 〔 as the F. W. Woolworth Company's new corporate headquarters on Broadway, between Park Place and Barclay Street in Lower Manhattan, opposite City Hall. Originally designed to be high, the building was eventually elevated to . At its opening, the Woolworth Building was 60 stories tall and had over 5,000 windows.〔 The construction cost was . With Irving National Exchange Bank Woolworth set up the Broadway-Park Place Company to finance the building, but by May 1914, had purchased all of the shares from the bank, thus owning the building outright. On completion, the Woolworth building topped the record set by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower as the world's tallest building. The building opened on April 24, 1913. President Woodrow Wilson turned the lights on by way of a button in Washington, D.C. that evening. Given its resemblance to European Gothic cathedrals, the structure was called "The Cathedral of Commerce" by the Reverend S. Parkes Cadman in a booklet of the same title published in 1916.〔〔 It remained the tallest building in the world until the construction of 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building, also in New York City, in 1930; an observation deck on the 57th floor attracted visitors until 1941. The building's tower, flush with the main frontage on Broadway, joins an office block base with a narrow interior court for light. The exterior decoration was cast in limestone-colored, glazed architectural terra-cotta panels.〔 Strongly articulated piers, carried—without interrupting cornices—right to the pyramidal cap, give the building its upward thrust. The Gothic detailing concentrated at the highly visible crown is over scaled, able to be read from the street level several hundred feet below. Engineers Gunvald Aus and Kort Berle designed the steel frame, supported on massive caissons that penetrate to the bedrock. The high-speed elevators were innovative, and the building's high office-to-elevator ratio made the structure profitable. The ornate, cruciform lobby, is "one of the most spectacular of the early 20th century in New York City".〔 It is covered in Skyros veined marble,〔 has a vaulted ceiling, mosaics, a stained-glass ceiling light and bronze fittings. Over the balconies of the mezzanine are the murals ''Labor'' and ''Commerce.'' Corbel sculptures include Gilbert with a model of the building, Aus taking a girder's measurements, and Woolworth counting nickels.〔〔 Woolworth's private office, revetted in marble in the French Empire style, has been preserved. The building's facade was restored between 1977 and 1981 by the Ehrenkrantz Group,〔, p. 67.〕 during which much of the terra-cotta was replaced with concrete and Gothic ornament was removed.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Woolworth Building」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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