American Tract Society Building

History and architecture

The American Tract Society Building, at the southeast corner of Nassau and Spruce Streets, was constructed in 1894-95 to the design of architect R. H. Robertson, who was known for his churches and institutional and office buildings in New York. It is one of the earliest, as well as one of the earliest extant, steel skeletal-frame skyscrapers in New York, partially of curtain-wall construction.

This was also one of the city's tallest and largest skyscrapers upon its completion. Twenty full stories high (plus cellar, basement, and three-story tower) and clad in rusticated gray Westerly granite, gray Haverstraw Roman brick, and buff-colored terra cotta, the building was constructed with a U-shaped plan, having an exterior light court. Combining elements of the Romanesque and Renaissance Revival styles, the design, with two similar principal facades, has an overall tripartite vertical scheme, but is also arranged in six horizontal sections.

The American Tract Society, founded in 1825 to publish and distribute religious tracts and literature, built on this site that same year. It emerged as one of the largest American publishers prior to the Civil War. The vicinity of Park Row and Nassau Street, center of newspaper publishing in New York City from the 1830s through the 1920s, was redeveloped, beginning in the 1870s, with a series of important tall office buildings. The American Tract Society Building, planned as a speculative venture when the Society was experiencing financial decline, was intended to provide it with a large rental income to continue its missions. The Society moved out, however, in 1914 and lost its building through foreclosure. The lower portion was leased to the publishers of the New York Sun from 1914 to 1919.