Some cool business register images:
NYC - Civic Center: Woolworth Building
Image by wallyg
The Woolworth Building was built in 1911-1913 for the Woolworth retail chain company. Frank W. Woolworth bought the long-coveted tract of land on Broadway opposite City Hall Park in 1909 and hired Cass Gilbert as architect; Gilbert urged his client to make the new headquarters the tallest building in the world. Woolworth, in turn, influenced by his travels to Europe, wanted his architect to design it in neo-Gothic style. After several redesigns, one higher than the other, finally to exceed the rivalling Metropolitan Life Tower, the foundations were laid in August 1911 and, at the rate of one and a half storeys a week, the 60-storey building was completed two years later.
Rising from a 27-storey base, with limestone and granite lower floors, the tower is clad in white terra-cotta and capped with an elaborate set-back Gothic top, with the spire rising to the height of 241.5 m. It was to be the tallest building in the world for 17 years, until the 40 Wall Street exceeded its height.
The building boasts a highly decorated, three-storey marble lobby in the plan form of a latin cross, with semicircular arches, bronze ornaments and sculpted corbels on the walls (one of which represents Mr. Woolworth himself counting his dimes) and the vaulted ceiling decorated with glass mosaic in Byzantine style. No wonder the building was dubbed the "Cathedral of Commerce."
The building was opened in April 1913 with a gala for 800 persons, and the building's lights were switched on by President Wilson from the White House in Washington, D.C.
In 1980 the building exterior was restored to its original splendour, an assignment that cost more than the original construction work.
The Woolworth chain eventually went out of business and its successor, the Venator Group, sold the building to the Witkoff Group for 5 million in June 1998.
The NY University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies will expand to the first three office floors of the building (8,700 m
Pittsburgh - North Shore: Roberto Clemente Bridge
Image by wallyg
The Roberto Clemente Bridge, also known as the Sixth Street Bridge, spans 884 feet across the Allegheny River, connecting the North Shore and the Central Business District in downtown Pittsburgh. Originally opened on October 19, 1928, it was renamed after Pittsburgh Pirates slugger, Roberto Clemente on August 6, 1998. The bridge was built from 1925 to 1928 by architect Stanley L. Roush and engineers Vernon R. Covell, H. E. Dodge, Alfred D. Nutter and T. J. Wilkerson of the Allegheny County Department of Public Works.
Along with the Rachel Carson Bridge and the Andy Warhol Bridge, it is one of the "Three Sisters Bridges," three parallel self-anchored suspension bridges crossing the Allegheney. They were the first self-anchored bridges built in the United States. The Municipal Art Commission had mandated the bridges all be suspension, but the site conditions didn't allow for typical anchorages. The unusual self-anchored design features heavy anchorages to hold the cable ends and rigid towers to hold the ends apart. The deck girders were originally painted green with the remaining superstructure aluminum grey, but today, like most downtown Pittsburgh river bridges, it is painted yellow.
The Sixth Street Bridge was designated a landmark by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmark in 1988.
National Register #86000017 (1986)
