Home Life Building

The Home Life Building is in the Civic Center and Tribeca neighborhoods of Manhattan, just west of New York City Hall and City Hall Park. It is on the northwest corner of Broadway and Murray Street, south of the Rogers Peet Building. The Home Life Building is composed of two formerly separate structures: the Postal Telegraph Company Building on 253 Broadway, at the corner with Murray Street, and the original Home Life Insurance Company Building at 256 Broadway, immediately to the north. The New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services administers most of the Home Life Building, with New York City government offices on the upper floors. A private owner controls the basements and ground level. The Home Life Building is one of the few remaining major insurance company "home office" structures in New York City. 253 Broadway, also known as the Postal Telegraph Building or the Commercial Cable Building, was designed by George Edward Harding & Gooch in the neoclassical style. It is 13 stories high, although the top floor is labeled as the 14th due to the perception of thirteen being unlucky. According to a contemporary news articles, it is tall. 256 Broadway, the original Home Life Building, was designed by Napoleon LeBrun & Sons in the Renaissance Revival style, The leading architect was likely Pierre Lassus LeBrun. It is 16 stories tall, counting a dormer in its gable roof, and reaches tall above the curb, including its gable roof. There are also two basement levels. Although 256 Broadway did not break any height records, Form 253 Broadway extends north along Broadway and west along Murray Street. It is shaped like an "L", extending west along Murray Street and then north to the Rogers Peet Building. The westernmost portion of the Murray Street arm extends north and is wide. 256 Broadway has light courts on the north and south, which were intended to illuminate the interior space. The light courts give the structure an "H" shape, with two rectangular sections connected by a corridor adjacent to the light courts. The deeper section of the "H" faces east toward Broadway, while the shallower section faces west. The westernmost part of 256 Broadway abuts the L-shaped forms of 253 Broadway and the Rogers Peet Building. The design of 253 Broadway emphasizes horizontal layering, with sill courses between each story, three intermediate cornices, and a large bronze cornice at the top. The facade of 256 Broadway is of Tuckahoe marble. The two interior light courts have a facade of brick. The 3rd floor of 256 Broadway is consistent with the 4th floor of 253 Broadway. The center bay of the 3rd floor contains an aedicule with two windows, topped by a pediment and flanked by pilasters. The other windows on the 3rd floor are single arched windows. A sill course separates the 3rd and 4th floors, except at the center bay, which is interrupted by the pediment. The 4th through 12th stories have seven windows on each story: five in the center and one on either of the outer bays. The windows of these stories are rectangular, except on the 4th floor where they are arched. The 5th and 13th stories have marble balconies supported by brackets and decorated with classical motifs. Ornamental shells are located above the tops of the center windows on the 12th floor. Band courses separate each of the shaft floors, and there are bracketed sills underneath the windows of each floor, the center sills being continuous with each other. Features Structural features 253 Broadway uses a metal skeletal frame for its superstructure. The front and rear walls of 253 Broadway were load-bearing walls below the 6th floor and carried by girders above that story. 253 Broadway's floors are built upon steel beams infilled with flat terracotta arches and covered with cement. 253 Broadway's structural beams were laid out so that the floors could carry a total live and dead load of . 256 Broadway uses a skeletal frame made almost entirely of wrought steel, with self-supporting outer walls made of marble. Terracotta and brick was used to enclose the interior steel frame. There are structural columns in the center of 256 Broadway's lot as well as on the edges. The interiors used wooden floors, The original elevators were themselves the first electric elevators commissioned by Frank J. Sprague. The Postal Telegraph Building also had one of the first revolving doors in New York City. Inside 256 Broadway, the northern half of the ground floor originally served as a banking hall for the Merchants' Exchange National Bank. The second floor contained the main offices of the Home Life Insurance Company. The ground floor had a ceiling of , while the second floor had a ceiling of . When opened, 256 Broadway was also outfitted with its own electric plant and three hydraulic elevators, located in the two basement levels of the building. 256 Broadway also contained brass plumbing and iron elevator grillwork. ==History==

Context Historically, the land was part of the farm holdings of Trinity Church. One of the commercial concerns on Broadway was the Home Life Insurance Company, a Brooklyn-based insurance company with a branch on Wall Street, which moved its branch to 258 Broadway in 1866. Home Life acquired the five-story building at 254 Broadway three years afterward, where it occupied the ground story and leased the remaining space. Another commercial concern on Broadway was the Postal Telegraph Company, formed in the 1880s by John William Mackay, who built the Postal network by purchasing existing telegraph firms that were insolvent. By 1890, the Postal Telegraph Company had become a viable competitor to Western Union. Its headquarters was also overcrowded, and management had to move out to make room for more operations staff. Construction By February 1892, Postal Telegraph had decided to build a new headquarters at Broadway and Murray Street, next to Home Life's building. The Home Life Insurance Company purchased 256 Broadway from Trinity Church on March 16, 1892. It simultaneously sold off the lot at 254 Broadway, which had of frontage on Broadway. One week later, Postal Telegraph signed a 99-year lease agreement with Trinity Church to lease the adjacent lots at 251–254 Broadway. The two companies applied for their building permits three months apart: Postal Telegraph in May 1892 and Home Life in August 1892. 253 Broadway The terms of Postal Telegraph's lease required Mackay to pay for the demolition of existing buildings on the site, and build a structure at least 10 stories tall. The lease prohibited serving of alcoholic beverages below the third story of Postal Telegraph's new building. and another that May when a worker fell off the roof. Additionally, the Postal Life Building's project superintendent was seriously injured in October 1893 when he was shot by a homeless man looking for work. 256 Broadway Home Life held a design competition for its planned headquarters, with six architecture firms competing. The judge, William Robert Ware, selected Napoleon LeBrun & Sons as the winning architects. The plan called for a building with three stories at the base, eight stories in the shaft, and a dormer and pediment under a peaked roof. This had been a trend since 1870, with the completion of the former Equitable Life Building in Manhattan's Financial District. Furthermore, life insurance companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries generally built massive buildings to fit their large clerical and records-keeping staff. Work on 253 Broadway began on November 2, 1892. The original plans called for Home Life's building to be 12 stories tall, extending on Broadway and deep. At the time, the superstructure had already reached the seventh floor, and the roof was not significantly changed. Work on both buildings was formally completed that August, with a city building inspector approving occupancy certificates for both buildings on the same day. One of the early tenants in the Home Life Building was the New York City Rapid Transit Commission, forerunner to the New York City Board of Transportation. At 253 Broadway, Postal Telegraph took the top three floors, a section of the basement, and a ground-floor corner office. Sprague Electric also occupied offices there. The buildings were damaged in a December 1898 fire that started at the Rogers Peet Building at 258 Broadway. The New York City Fire Department was unable to reach the top stories of 256 Broadway, although external damage only reached that building's 8th floor. 256 Broadway suffered a loss worth about 22% of its $900,000 estimated value. The floor materials used in the two buildings affected the amount of damage they sustained. The interior of 256 Broadway was completely gutted, except for walls, ceilings, and floor slabs, because the fire had been able to spread through the wooden floors of that structure. 253 Broadway, which featured cement floors, saw comparatively minor damage, with only the 13th floor being affected. After the fire, opponents of skyscrapers used the damage at 256 Broadway as an example for their cause, while supporters cited the fact that both structures were still structurally sound. Fire codes had been changed in 1897 so that buildings taller than had to be fireproof. The lowest eight floors of 256 Broadway's facade, severely damaged by the fire, were rebuilt. A high-pressure fire-suppression system was also activated in Lower Manhattan in 1908, providing protection to both buildings. Early 20th century Home Life moved its headquarters from Brooklyn to 256 Broadway in 1906. The company gradually expanded its presence in 256 Broadway; it only occupied the 2nd through 6th floors in 1916, but was using fifteen full floors by the 1940s. Next door, Postal Telegraph continued to be the main occupant at 253 Broadway until 1928, when it moved to the International Telephone Building at 67 Broad Street. Despite having moved out, Postal Telegraph extended its lease of 253 Broadway with Trinity Church in 1929. In 1930, the Corn Exchange Bank acquired the ground lease for the building. Postal Telegraph moved back to 253 Broadway in 1939, signing a long-term lease for six floors in the building. Four years later, Postal Telegraph merged with Western Union. During this time, the ground floor space was occupied by Wallach's Inc. and the basement housed a branch of the Longchamps restaurant chain. The agreement was finalized in January 1947. The Home Life Building was split vertically into two condominiums in 1989. The basement through second floor was owned by 253 Broadway Associates and used as retail space, while the upper floors were owned by the New York City government and used as offices; parts of the third floor were jointly owned. Among the agencies that had taken space in the city-owned portion of the building were the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City. In 1991, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the building as a landmark. The LPC started renovating six floors in the Home Life Building in 2016, intending to move its offices there the next year. However, the renovation's expected completion date was subsequently delayed to 2021, and the renovation cost increased from $29 million to $62 million. The city government announced in 2017 that it would renovate the Home Life Building with an estimated budget of $18.5 million. In 2025, the LPC moved into its new offices and public hearing room space, which one reporter praised for its "light and internal transparency". ==Critical reception==

When the buildings were completed in 1894, a writer for the Real Estate Record and Guide stated that they "war violently with one another, and the pity is, the strife is one [that] time can not mitigate". The writer concluded that "either would be better were the other away". Later critics did not view the different designs as conflicting. Architectural writers Sarah Landau and Carl W. Condit stated in 1996 that "it is hard to understand what seemed in 1894 so egregious", with the "only jarring discordance" being the glass blocks on 253 Broadway. 256 Broadway was better received, albeit with fewer reviews until the early 20th century. ==References==