Everett Building (Manhattan)

The site of the Everett Building was initially part of the colonial farm owned by Dutch settler Cornelius Tiebout. Union Square was first laid out in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, expanded in 1832, and then made into a public park in 1839. The completion of the park led to the construction of mansions surrounding it, and the Everett House hotel, located on the north side of East 17th Street, was among several fashionable buildings completed around Union Square. After the American Civil War, Union Square became a primarily commercial area and many mansions were destroyed, including Everett House. Plans for the development of a 20-story office building on the site of Everett House were first announced in June 1908. When the plans were publicly released at the end of that month, there was high demand for industrial loft and office space in the area. Only four months elapsed between the building's groundbreaking ceremony and the initial spaces being ready for tenants. Upon opening, the Everett Building was one of the many buildings around Union Square and Park Avenue that were occupied by the cotton, dry-goods, wool, and silk industries. Space in the Everett Building and several others on Union Square's northern end was cheaper than the industrial space on Fifth Avenue, two blocks west, and as a result the Everett Building's space was in high demand. By October 1911, the Real Estate Record & Guide wrote that the Everett Building was fully occupied. Though the building was erected for the Everett Investing Company, its other tenants worked in a variety of industries, and included silk sellers William Skinner and Sons, construction contractors W. G. Cornell, and even the offices of Starrett & van Vleck. == Architecture ==

The Everett Building is located on a reverse-L-shaped site measuring along Park Avenue South and along 17th Street. The building has arms extending to the north and west, and a rectangular recess is located at the northwest corner of the building. When erected, the Everett Building's design was described by the Real Estate Record as being among several "strictly commercial" buildings on Park Avenue South that were "thoroughly contemporary" and built at a fast pace. Starrett & van Vleck used a grid-like pattern on the fourth through 14th floor, creating an exterior articulation depicting the structural frame inside, and thus fulfilled a key design principle of the Chicago school architectural style. According to critic A. C. David, the optimal building design included high ceilings and large windows to maximize natural light coverage. The Everett Building not only included these features, but also had a corner location that was conducive toward the maximization of natural light. features that David described as being part of the optimal building design. The 15th and 16th floors contain orange and green terracotta decoration. Rectangular orange panels are placed on the space between floors, as well as on the piers between architectural bays, while circular green panels are placed in the middle of the piers between each floor, at the midpoints between four rectangular panels. An intricately molded cornice is located above the 16th floor. The northern and western facades consist of white buff brick with windows on the 9th through 17th floors, and have very little ornamentation. ==See also==