The Everett Building

History and architecture

The Everett Building is a sixteen-story commercial structure located on the northwest corner of East 17th Street and Park Avenue South. Named for Union Square's nineteenth-century Everett Hotel, and built in 1908 for the Everett Investing Company, it was designed by Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck, a firm known for its commercial architecture.

It is a quintessential example of a building type defined by A. C. David (writing in Architectural Record in 1910): functional, fireproof, speedy to construct, while also demonstrating a concern for "architectural decency;" as such, this building is a uniquely American architectural expression. In its design, the Everett Building synthesizes classical elements with key aspects of both the New York and the Chicago styles; Goldwin Starrett was familiar with the Chicago style as a result of his years in Daniel Burnham's Chicago office.

The building reflects its structure in its cladding, while employing a design vocabulary that includes classical motifs. The Everett Building is prominently located on a site on the north side of Union Square and, together with the monumental Germania (now Guardian) Life Insurance Company Building directly across the avenue, forms an imposing terminus to Park Avenue South.

The land on which the Everett Building stands was originally part of Cornelius Tiebout's farm. From 1853 on, the site was occupied by the Everett House, a hotel frequented by the singers and musicians performing at the new opera house, the Academy of Music (1854, architect Alexander Saeltzer).

Like the Belvedere and the Clarendon, hotels which were also demolished to make way for 'modern' office and loft buildings, the Everett House was razed to clear the site for the Everett Building.

The Everett Building is prominently situated on the northwest corner of East 17th Street and Union Square North, at the base of Park Avenue South (then called Fourth Avenue). Stations for major subway, surface, and "El" lines were close to the site, which was characterized by Real Estate Record & Guide in 1908 as "one of the most accessible locations for modern office buildings in the city."

Although when built, the Everett Building was associated with a possible transformation of Union Square to be effected by the construction of a new courthouse, the building was later seen as evidence of the concentration of the silk, woolen, cotton, and dry goods trades on Fourth Avenue, the area around the Square and lateral streets.

By September, 1910, about seventeen new loft and office buildings (generally restricted to office and salesroom needs, as opposed to manufacturing) had been erected, conveniently located near hotels and transportation.

In October 1911, Real Estate Record & Guide noted that "the Everett Building and those along the avenue, in which dry goods people are tenants, are all filled up."

Larger than the late nineteenth-century buildings on Union Square West, the new loft and office buildings, such as the Everett Building, altered the scale of structures on the Square's northern and southern ends and formed the core of a new mercantile district developed as an economical alternative to the commercial district along lower Fifth Avenue.

Notice of Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck's selection as the recipients of the commission to design the Everett Building appeared in Real Estate Record & Guide for August 1, 1908.

The Everett Building was built for the Everett Investing Company; included among its early tenants were a wide variety of businesses and occupations, including William Skinner & Sons, an operating establishment "in the broad silk end"; the firm of W. G. Cornell, which was responsible for the plumbing for the new Gimbel Building and the offices of Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck.