Former A. T. Demarest & Company and Peerless Motor Car Company Buildings

History and architecture

The A.T. Demarest & Company and Peerless Motor Car Company Buildings, located in the heart of the "Automobile Row" section of Broadway in Manhattan, were used by the automobile industry for over six decades. They were constructed in 1909 to the designs of eminent architect Francis H. Kimball, in collaboration with consulting engineer Purdy & Henderson and George A. Fuller Co., builders. Kimball had emerged in the forefront of early skyscraper design in New York City, particularly during his collaboration with G. Kramer Thompson in 1892-98. A.T. Demarest & Co., started in 1860 by Aaron T. Demarest, was a carriage manufacturer that also ventured into the production of automobile bodies around 1902. The Peerless Motor Car Co. of New York was a branch of the Cleveland luxury automobile manufacturing firm.

Though architecturally harmonious, the two buildings were constructed separately for these firms - the Peerless building was L-shaped in plan and wrapped around the corner Demarest building - and have subtly different ornamental schemes. Incorporating neo- Gothic and neo-Romanesque stylistic references, they were designed to relate to the mammoth neo-Gothic style Broadway Tabernacle then located next door to the south. Kimball employed the technology of contemporary skyscrapers for these buildings.

Nine stories in height (plus a partial tenth story and two-storv tower on the Peerless building), they are of steel-frame curtain wall construction above concrete piers and are almost entirely clad on the principal facades in white matt glazed terra cotta (now painted) manufactured by the New York Architectural Terra Cotta Co., the only major architectural terra cotta firm in New York City. This represents an early and significant use of terra-cotta cladding for tall buildings in New York.

These buildings had ground-story automobile and carriage showrooms (among the earliest surviving in New York), with repair shops and warerooms above. Both structures were acquired in 1918 and combined into one office building by the recently-formed General Motors Corporation for its initial major corporate headquarters. The building was used by General Motors for over fifty years, until its purchase in 1977 by the Hearst Corporation to house offices of its Hearst Magazines division.