American Surety Building

1898 drawing of the American Surety Building

100 Broadway in 2007

The American Surety Building is a historic skyscraper located at 100 Broadway, New York City, New York, opposite Trinity Church. It has been declared a landmark as one of Manhattan's most influential early skyscrapers.

The building was constructed 1894-1896 to designs by noted architect Bruce Price, and was one of Manhattan's first buildings with steel framing and curtain wall construction. At its original 21 stories, it was Price's first tall building and the second tallest building in New York.

In an interview, Price described his design as "a campanile with four pilaster faces, the seven flutes being represented by seven rows of windows". The building is set on an irregular, trapezoidal lot, and designed as a Neo-Renaissance tower clad in Maine granite with a 3-story base, an 12-story shaft, and a 6-story cap. (Its 4th and 15 stories are transitional.) The base is an Ionic entrance colonnade topped with sculptures in a classical style by J. Massey Rhind. Above rises a middle section of horizontally banded piers with vertical strips framing the windows, which culminates in a row of figural sculptures extending from the 14th to 15th stories. A further six-story cap (subsequently modified) featured a colonnade of Corinthian pilasters, stone cornice, and a crowning parapet of gilded metal acroteria on the setback 20th and 21st stories.

In 1920-1922, New York architect Herman Lee Meader supervised alterations which included a new L-shaped annex that widened the tower from 7 to 11 bays, and addition of several stories, which greatly modified the original cap.

References

Landmarks Preservation Commission report
Matthew A. Postal, Andrew S. Dolkart, Guide to New York City Landmarks, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, page 12. ISBN 0-471-36900-4.
NYC-Architecture.com
Barr Ferree, "A Talk with Bruce Price," The Great American Architects Series, Architectural Record, 5 (June 1899), in Great American Architects Series Nos. 1-6; May 1895-July 1899 (reprint New York: Arno Press, 1977), page 76.

Structures on Broadway in Manhattan

1-599 (Battery Pl. - W. Houston St.)	1 Broadway 2 Broadway Bowling Green 26 Broadway (previously occupied by Lautman's Dairy) Cunard Building 52 Broadway Adams Express Building 65 Broadway 1 Wall Street AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company Trinity Church Equitable Building Equitable Life Building Marine Midland Building Zuccotti Park One Liberty Plaza Fulton Center Corbin Building American Surety Building 195 Broadway Astor House Woolworth Building City Hall Park New York City Hall Broadway–Chambers Building 280 Broadway 287 Broadway Appleton Building 359 Broadway 361 Broadway (James S. White Building) 462 Broadway Mechanics' Hall E. V. Haughwout Building New Era Building Scholastic Building Singer Building

600-1499 (W. Houston St. - Times Sq.)	Cable Building Canterbury Hall Grace Church Church of the Messiah Grand Central Hotel 770 Broadway Strand Bookstore Tisch School of the Arts Grace Church Union Square Flatiron Building Madison Square Baudouine Building Gilsey House Grand Hotel Radisson Hotel Martinique Hotel McAlpin Herald Square Haier Building Knickerbocker Theatre Marbridge Building Metropolitan Opera House (former) Rialto Theatre Times Square One Times Square (previously occupied by Pabst Hotel) Condé Nast Building The Knickerbocker Hotel

1500-1800 (Times Sq. - Columbus Cir.)	1500 Broadway (previously occupied by Hotel Claridge) 1501 Broadway One Astor Plaza Astor Theatre Minskoff Theatre New York Marriott Marquis Morgan Stanley Building Palace Theatre Brill Building Winter Garden Theatre Central Theatre Capitol Theatre Ellen's Stardust Diner Paramount Plaza Studebaker Building Broadway Theatre 1717 Broadway 1740 Broadway Random House Tower Columbus Circle

North of Columbus Cir.	Museum of Biblical Art Dauphin Hotel Beacon Theatre The Apthorp Bretton Hall Goddard Institute for Space Studies Barnard College Audubon Ballroom United Palace Dyckman House Church of the Good Shepherd

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American Surety Building

References

See also