Skyscrapers

Singer Building/New York City.
New York: The American Art Publishing Co. [c. 1908]. [folding post card, 17⅝˝ × 5⅜˝]

Places to Visit in New York City/The Quickest Way to See New York is from the top of the Singer Tower 612 feet above Broad-way.
New York: Singer Sewing Machine Company [c. 1910]. 

The lower portion of the building was built in the late 1890s. The base building was enlarged vertically and the tower was added in 1906–1908. Ernest Flagg was the architect of the original building and the additions. The building was taken down in 1968, and at that time it was the tallest building ever demolished. The brochure has views from the tower and information for visitors.

H. Addington Bruce. The Metropolitan Life Building New York.
[New York: Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., n.d., c. 1910].

At 700 feet, the Met Life Tower took the “tallest” title away from the Singer within a year or two. Both Met Life and Singer were marketing firms, selling insurance or sewing machines to the masses, businesses for whom the publicity of having the world’s tallest building was advantageous. The brochure has photographs of the view from the Tower and views in the building. The text explains that the Tower is roughly modeled after the Campanile of St. Mark in Venice, but does not name the architect, Napoleon Le Brun & Co.

1. Woolworth Building, New York. [folding post card, 17½˝ × 3⅞˝] New York: The Success Postal Card Co., [c. pre-1913].
2. Woolworth Building, New York. [souvenir print, 16⅜˝ × 7˝] [New York]: F. W. Woolworth, [c. 1910s].

H. Addington Bruce. Above the Clouds and Old New York.
New York: Published for Distribution among the Visitors to the Woolworth Tower New York [1913].

Cass Gilbert’s Woolworth building was in a class of its own. For the tallest building (792 feet) to be in the Gothic form was a major achievement, and it held the “tallest” title for some 17 years. The Woolworth Building promotional brochures “Above the Clouds” and its successor “The Cathedral of Commerce” are beautifully done publications and achieved wide distribution based on the frequency with which they were encountered years later. Post card No. 1 illustrates the hazard of a post card printer issuing a card before the building is built – it is not the way the building turned out.