The Century Building

History and architecture

The Century Building is a rare surviving Queen Anne style commercial building in New York City. Designed by William Schickel and built in 1880-81, it has been a major presence in Union Square for over a century.

Schickel, a German-born architect who practiced in New York, rose to prominence as a leading late-19th century designer of churches and institutional buildings in the United States. He designed the Century Building as a speculative venture for his major clients, the owners of the Arnold Constable department stores.

Schickel designed the Century Building in the Queen Anne style, an English import defined by a picturesque use of 17th- and 18th-century motifs. More usually associated in this country with residential architecture, the Queen Anne was also used in commercial buildings, but few of these survive in New York City. The Century is an unusually handsome example of the Queen Anne, notable particularly for its richly carved stonework, its two-story oriel window, its gambrel roof framed by massive chimney stacks, and its terra-cotta details including sunflowers, the trademark of the style.

For over three decades the building housed the Century Publishing Company, publishers of the Century and St. Nicholas magazines. The Century was considered by many critics to be one of the finest general periodicals in the world during the last two decades of the 19th century.

Today, the Century Building survives as one of the most picturesque structures in New York, and is a physical reminder of one of New York's 19th-century literary giants.