Potter Building

History and architecture

The eleven-story Potter Building was commissioned by Orlando B. Potter, a prominent figure in New York politics with prime commercial real estate holdings in Manhattan, and constructed in 1883-86 to the design of N.G. Starkweather, an architect who had formerly practiced in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Built to replace Potter's World Building, destroyed by fire in January 1882, the Potter Building had the most advanced fireproofing then available. With its vertically-expressed design executed in red brick and brownstone-colored terra cotta above a cast-iron-clad base, and picturesque, flamboyant fusion of Queen Anne, neo-Grec, Renaissance Revival, and Colonial Revival motifs, the Potter Building was distinguished stylistically from most downtown buildings.

Several aspects of the Potter Building make it today one of New York's most significant surviving tall office buildings of the period prior to the full development of the skyscraper. Its brickwork is among the handsomest in New York City. An early building to employ extensive exterior architectural terra cotta, it is a rare survivor of that period of development of terra cotta in New York. The highly sculpted terra cotta, produced by the Boston Terra Cotta Co., was employed in a notable "constructive" manner in the loadbearing walls.

The Potter Building is also an important surviving example of a New York office building with interior framing mostly of iron, as well as one of the earliest surviving examples of an office building having a C-shaped plan with a major light court facing the street. Its significance is enhanced by the fact that its original design is nearly intact , and its visibility is heightened by its prominent location facing City Hall Park and by its three fully articulated facades.