Thirty-two stories, built in 1899. It's two narrow buildings yoked together. This era of skyscraper construction is known as "The Composite Era," perhaps because the architects just threw everything together to see what worked. This worked. It keeps tamping itself down with balconies and string courses, but over all it soars nicely.
With essentially no comparable structures against which to measure the building's strengths and weaknesses, the criticism from the architectural community was quite harsh. The New York Times quoted a critic, who in 1898 wrote in The Real Estate Record and Guide, "New York is the only city in which such a monster would be allowed to rear itself," and called the blank side walls "absolutely inexpressive and vacuous."
In a 1908 article in The New York Times, a French architect, Augustin-Adolphe Rey, wrote that "one side of it is an entirely bare wall — what difference does it make how the other sides are treated?"
Critic Jean Schopfer called the building "detestable".
