The Woolworth Building, at 233 Broadway, is a personal favorite of mine – my business was located down the block on Park Place for 10 years, so I saw this building daily. The Gothic structure, with spires, arches, flying buttresses, and gargoyles, was designed by Cass Gilbert and built in 1913 for $13 million in cash by Frank Woolworth as his corporate headquarters (until their bankruptcy in 1997) for his chain of five and dime stores. At 792 feet, it was the tallest building in the world and remained so until 1930.

One of the stellar attractions is the spectacular lobby. I have visited numerous times. However, as I have written several times before, here we have another case of heavily restricted access to a landmark building subsequent to 9/11. Prior to that event, guards were accustomed to visitors and welcomed them. At night, when it was quiet and the guards were not busy, showing interest in the lobby resulted in what amounted to a free personal tour, with a history of the construction of the building and explanation of the architectural and sculptural elements. They were always eager to point out the all the features of the magnificent vaulted lobby with blue and gold glass mosaics, murals, marble, and the sculptured caricatures, including Woolworth counting his nickels and dimes, Cass Gilbert holding a model of the building, and the structural engineer Gunvald Aus. Its exterior is also outstanding with limestone, granite, terra-cotta, and its signature pyramidal copper spire, now with a green patina.

When first built, it was referred to as a Cathedral of Commerce, an appropriate description for this National Historic Landmark. Today, it is impossible to access the interior unless you have specific business in the building. So for now, I only have photos of the exterior to share with you…

Even the plain becomes interesting when it is extremely plain, and nothing beats the AT&T Long Lines Building at 33 Thomas Street for a bleak, monolithic structure. 550 feet with no windows. I have been fascinated by this building for over 20 years but never made a serious effort to learn anything about it until writing this article, when I decided to get to the bottom of it all. What’s going on in there? Plenty, just no people.

The structure was designed by John Carl Warnecke and completed in 1974 as a telephone switching hub for AT&T, now used primarily by AT&T and Verizon. The floors are 18 feet tall – nearly double the height of a standard commercial building – so technically the building is only 29 stories. The exterior walls are made from concrete panels clad with pink-colored Swedish granite. The vertical protrusions are shafts which house the elevators, stairs, and ductwork. There are large, rectangular ventilation holes at the 10th and 29th floors. It is considered one of the most secure buildings in the US and was designed to resist a nuclear blast and be self-sufficient for up to two weeks.

My understanding is that the building is essentially humanless, barring the occasional technician. On September 17, 1991, human error and power equipment failure resulted in the disabling of the central office switch. Over 5 million calls were blocked, and FAA phone lines were also interrupted, disrupting air traffic control to 398 airports serving most of the northeastern US. In researching for this posting, I saw the architectural style of this building categorized as both International Style II and Brutalism (French béton brut, or “raw concrete”).

Don’t try to get any consensus as to its appearance – even critics are divided. Architecture critics for the NY Times, Paul Goldberger and Herbert Muschamp, both seem to like it. Goldberger says, “This is the only one of the several windowless equipment buildings the phone company has built that makes any sense architecturally – it is sheathed in a warm and handsome granite, and though it looks more like a mammoth piece of equipment than a conventional building, it, in fact, blends into its surroundings more gracefully than does any other skyscraper in this area.” Muschamp says, “The pink granite tower is forbidding, and it obstructs the river view I would enjoy if the building were demolished. But who cares? Obstructed views are part of what makes New York democratic. And Warnecke’s building starkly frames my view of midtown as if it were a sheer Grand Canyon wall: a neat special effect.” On the other hand, in one survey of architects and critics for the Ugliest Buildings in New York City, the building received the distinction of coming in 6th place…

This was looking like an average story of a nice-looking church. Until I read that this church was named after the Basilica of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Pompeii in Italy, which was founded by a former Satanist – Bartolo Longo (1841-1926). Read his story here. He was later beatified on October 26, 1980 by Pope John Paul II, who referred to him as the “Apostle of the Rosary.”

The church in the photo (built in 1928), Our Lady of Pompeii, is located on the corner of Carmine and Bleecker Streets in the Village. It has very high visibility from nearby 6th Avenue and is a landmark in the area. I have shown it as viewed from behind (to the west) along Bleecker Street. Its construction was organized by Father Antonio Demo (born 1870 in Lazzaretto di Bassano, Italy, died in 1936 in New York City) to replace a former church where he was pastor.

In an interesting side note, the former church is where St. Frances Xavier Cambrini worshipped and taught – she was the first American citizen to be canonised. The church was built in 1928 in Italian-Renaissance style with an interior graced by marble columns, frescoes, and murals. This area of the South Village still shows signs and remnants of its Italian heritage – the shops along Bleecker Street between 6th and 7th Avenues are a good example. Between 1880 and 1920, more than 50,000 Italian immigrants settled here. Father Demo’s legacy continued with the naming of the triangular plot across the street from the church: Father Demo Square…