History and architecture
This elegant, Beaux-Arts style, twenty- story office building was constructed in 1911- 12 for the United States Rubber Company at a time when the automobile was beginning to exert a powerful influence on American society. Located on Broadway, along the section known as "Automobile Row," the U.S. Rubber Company Building was one of the most prominent and important of the many automobile-related structures concentrated here. The two lowest floors originally provided retail space for the company's subsidiary, the United States Tire Company, while U.
S . Rubber occupied eight of the office stories. Designed by the prominent architectural firm of Carrere & Hastings, this office building features delicately-carved marble facades crowned by a broad copper cornice. The design, which continues around both the Broadway and 58th Street facades, features a distinctive rounded corner and vertically-grouped windows with metal spandrels and thin, continuous piers.
In this building, as in their other works, Carrere and Hastings used their training at the French Ecole des Beaux Arts to create an impressive design for a tall building where the skeleton construction is expressed by the thin stone veneei lowest floors of this building were remodeled in which is obviously non-weight-bearing.
Sources and further reading
This history comes from the Landmarks app’s historical catalog. Names and building uses may reflect the period described.