The New York Herald headquarters in New York City (1893-1895) by Stanford White

From web-log by Tom Miller, writer of Searching for New York:

"James Gordon Bennett, Sr. based The New York Herald in 1835. Beneath his masterful management it grew to become the dominant newspaper within the metropolis for many of the century. Though his son, James Gordon Bennett, Jr. was raised in Paris, it was anticipated that he would return to New York to take over the enterprise. And he did, in 1866 shortly earlier than his father's demise.

However the youthful Bennett had loved a carefree, playboy way of life in France that might increase eyebrows within the buttoned-up parlors of Victorian Manhattan. When he attended a New 12 months's Day social gathering hosted by his fiancee's household in 1877 he put an finish to his engagement and his life in New York by urinating within the fire.

Bennett went right into a self-imposed exile in Paris, nearly sneaking again into New York often to make shock visits to the Herald workplaces. His bodily absence didn’t alter the truth that the flamboyant and eccentric writer was totally in cost.

Because the nineteenth century entered its final decade, Bennett selected a transfer from the Herald's white marble constructing on Newspaper Row in decrease Manhattan. Furiously battling Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst for newspaper supremacy on the time, he made a gutsy determination to desert the publishing district altogether. Recognizing the northward enlargement of commerce, he leased the triangular plot of floor on the intersection of Broadway and sixth Avenue between thirty fifth and thirty sixth Streets from William De Forest Manice.

Bennett signed two leases—one for twenty years and the second for ten. The yearly rental for the primary ten years was $55,000, $65,000 for the second ten years, and $75,000 for the third. When his supervisor questioned Bennett on constructing with solely a 30-year lease, the writer replied 'Thirty years from now the Herald might be in Harlem, and I'll be in hell!'

For the design of his new headquarters James Gordon Bennett went to Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White. How a lot affect Bennett had on the design is a matter of competition; nevertheless by 1893 preliminary sketches have been launched to the general public. White based mostly his design on the 1476 Venetian Renaissance Palazzo del Consiglio in Verona. Accomplished in 1895, its one criticism was that it was 'too good' a replica.

If Bennett had no affect on the fashion of the constructing, he most undoubtedly gave route on its ornament. By now the writer had grow to be obsessive about hoot owls. He had run editorials within the New York and Paris editions of the Herald combating for the preservation of the species. The owl grew to become the image of the newspaper. Alongside the roofline he had twenty-six four-foot bronze owls put in. The birds on the corners, with unfold wings, got inexperienced glass eyes that eerily glowed on and off with the toll of the Herald's clock. The owls have been meant to represent the knowledge of the newspaper's printed phrases.

The owl motif was carried additional within the magnificent bronze grouping that surmounted the thirty fifth Road façade. Minerva, goddess of knowledge whose conventional attendant was the owl, stood over a big bell. Two mechanized typesetters carrying leather-based printers' aprons swung mallets, tolling the hour. Atop the bell perched one more bronze owl. The sculptural group was commissioned in Paris at a price of $200,000 and executed by French artist Antonin Jean Paul Charles.

Bennett paid for the sculpture and the owls from his personal pocket to make sure his private possession.

Bennett's owl infatuation would culminate just a few years later when he known as upon Stanford White once more to design a 125-foot tall stone owl for his Washington Heights property. The towering sculpture would stand on a 75-foot pedestal and was designed to carry his future sarcophagus. Bennett envisioned vacationers climbing a round staircase surrounding Bennett's suspended coffin; lastly reaching a platform on the prime the place magnificent views of the town could possibly be loved.

Though White accomplished the designs, his homicide on June 25, 1906 halted the anomalous tomb's building.

Within the meantime, White's magnificent Italian palazzo was a present stopper. A deep and swish arcade alongside the edges supplied passersby the chance to look at the large presses in movement inside. On March 21, 1895, at midday, the bronze figures above the roof first tolled the hour. Editor & Writer wrote that 'hundreds of individuals cluttered up the neighborhood and gazed on the two figures.'

Architectural critics authorized. John Vredenburgh Van Pelt, in Progressive Structure, stated 'Stanford White's work in terra cotta is the perfect of the interval.' James Gordon Bennett was not so certain. Shortly after the constructing's completion he traveled to New York to examine the completed items. Editor & Writer later reported that 'He stood on a road a block under and stated: "It seems to be a bit of 'squattier' than I assumed it might. It may have had yet one more story."'

Squat or not, the New York Herald constructing was now the most expensive newspaper workplace constructing on this planet. The New York Occasions steered that Stanford White will need to have been thrilled with the costly and highly-visible web site. '…The architect could very nicely view it with delight, because it offers him an opportunity to transform a business constructing into an "exhibit" of a terrific business, and even to provide it a monumental character.'

The newspaper praised White's disciplined following of the fifteenth century fashion. 'There is no such thing as a straining after originality within the design, the element being of the early Italian Renaissance and the structure recalling, maybe too particularly, a number of the monuments of the fifteenth century, of the interval of the Certoso at Pavia. The good and nearly unprecedented profusion of the ornamental element is a degree that can arrest consideration.'

The Occasions ended its evaluation saying 'Upon the entire, Mr. Bennett and his architects are to be congratulated upon a swish and efficient piece of structure which constitutes an decoration to the town.'

However the decoration to the town wouldn’t final lengthy. The New York Herald constructing was iconic. It outlined what was now known as Herald Sq. and it attracted scores of vacationers and New Yorkers alike daily who would press in opposition to the expansive road stage home windows to look at the printers at work. Tens of hundreds of postcards and stereopticon slides of the extraordinary architectural gem that held a printing plant have been printed.

But on Might 12, 1921 the New-York Tribune ran a head line that learn 'Outdated Herald Constructing Quickly to Come Down.' Bennett's 30-year lease was coming to a detailed and, as he anticipated, the newspaper was transferring additional north. By the point the Tribune ran the article, preparations have been already beneath approach.

'The heroic bronze smiths, often known as Guff and Stuff, who had been putting out the hours evening and day on the large bell on prime of the southern façade of the constructing for the final twenty-eight years, and the goggling owls that had watched from their lofty perch on prime of the constructing throughout these years have been eliminated final month, for they have been the property of the late Mr. Bennett,' stated the newspaper.

The lease had been taken over by Nicholas C. Partos, head of the Partola Manufacturing Firm which made 'candied drugs.' The Tribune reported that he 'plans to switch the current low construction…with one among twenty tales for use principally as headquarters for his firm.'

A month later the Herald Constructing bought a reprieve of a form. The New York Occasions reported on June 18 that the Rogers Peet Firm—a males's clothier—had leased the southern half of 'the well-known previous construction.' Rogers Peet would transfer from its current location, diagonally throughout sixth Avenue, into 33,000 sq. ft. The previous press rooms and workplaces have been renovated at a price of $400,000, together with the set up of a mezzanine, to promoting house.

In February the next yr, Rogers Peet moved in. An commercial in The New-York Tribune stated 'To-day, although the Herald Constructing has been transformed into high quality promoting quarters, flooded with daylight, the final design of the constructing, which is a reproduction of the charming Palazzo del Consiglio or Metropolis Corridor of Verona, stays unchanged—a matter for congratulation to the architect who has so skillfully retained a grace of artwork whereas reworking it to its new prosaic function.'

The advert lamented the lack of the blinking owls on the roof, however added 'Now it's birds of style who will alight to see up-to-the-minute kinds designed for males of the hour!'

Within the meantime, Partos demolished the northern half of the constructing and, as promised, erected a contemporary high-rise workplace constructing.

The keep of execution for the entrance half of the Herald Constructing lasted till 1940. On February 24 The Occasions reported on the approaching demolition. Proprietor 1,350 Broadway Realty Company introduced {that a} new $250,000 four-story construction designed by architect H. Craig Severance would exchange White's showplace. The newspaper stated the 'enchancment' could be a 'granite and limestone constructing with bronze retailer fronts that includes massive show home windows.'

Later that yr a 40-foot granite monument to James Gordon Bennett, Jr. designed by Aymar Embury II, consulting architect of the Parks Division, was put in in Herald Sq.. It integrated the mechanized clock grouping of Minerva and the 2 bell-tollers which had been lengthy crated away in storage.

Herald Sq. now options a number of of the bronze rooftop owls perched on gate posts. And when you look intently as evening falls, you will notice that the owls with unfold wings atop the monument nonetheless flash their eerie inexperienced eyes.

The monument and the owls are the final vestiges of one among New York Metropolis's masterpieces of structure, wiped away in favor of what Nicholas Partos known as in 1921 'a construction of nice revenue producing capability.'"