Beekman Tower Building

Beekman Tower Building
  1. About the Beekman Tower Building in New York
    1. Building Catalogations
  2. Architect and team
  3. Architectureal style
  4. Spaces and uses
  5. Structure and materials

The Beekman Tower Building is an Art-deco skyscraper designed in 1922 by Jonh Mead Howells and built between 1927 and 1928 in New York, NY.

Beekman Tower Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The building has changed names several times over the years, and is also known as:

  • Beekman Tower between 1928 and 1934.
  • Beekman Tower Hotel between 1964 and 2013.
  • The Beekman Tower, Trademark Collection by Windham from 2018 until this day.

Its precise street address is 1-7 Mitchell Place, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

The Beekman Tower Building is a structure of significant importance both for the city of New York and the United States as a nation. The building embodies the distinctive characteristic features of the time in which it was built and the Art Deco style. Because of that, the Beekman Tower Building was officially declared as a national landmark on February 3rd 1998.

The building has been restored 5 times over the years to ensure its conservation and adaptation to the pass of time. The main restoration works happened in 1929, 1940, 1960, 1964 and 1991.

Building's timeline

Design completed
1922
102
Construction begins
1927
97
Beekman Tower
1928
96
a
Restoration
1929
95
b
Restoration
1940
84
c
Restoration
1960
64
d
Restoration
1964
60
e
Restoration
1991
33
Declared NL
1998
26
The Beekman Tower, Trademark Collection by Windham
2018
6
years ago
2024
  1. 1928 to 1929 - Ten-story addition. The architect in charge was Jonh Mead Howells.
  2. 1940 - The solarium became the Top of the Tower bar.
  3. 1960 - Air conditioning was installed in the building.
  4. 1964 - Installed bathrooms and small kitchens in each room. The architect in charge was Sidney Goldhammer.
  5. 1989 to 1991 - General remodeling.

Architect and team

Jonh Mead Howells was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design. But there was also one other architect involved, as far as we know. We are talking about Donn Barber.

Jonh Mead Howells and the other architects already mentioned were in charge of the architectural design, however, architecture is a complex discipline, which usually involves many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the Beekman Tower Building a reality:

  • Panhellenic Association's New York as the Main Developer
  • Rene Paul Chambellan as the collaborating Artist

Architectural Style

The Beekman Tower Building can be categorized as an Art-deco building.

The Art Deco movement flourished during the 1920s and 1930s, with many historians marking the outbreak of World War II as its final decline. Even though a couple of decades might not seem as much, the Art Deco movement had a great impact on architecture, and it's widely represented in many American cities due to the development boom that happened during that time.

Art Deco marked the abandonment of traditional historicism and the embracement of modern living and the age of the machine. In architecture, that meant leaving behind the ornaments of Beux-Arts and Neo-Gothic buildings and instead favoring simplicity and visual impact through geometric shapes, clean lines, and symmetrical designs. Ornaments were still an important part of the design, but they became bold and lavish, and were often inspired by ancient cultures or industrial imagery, instead of nature.

The Beekman Tower Building was completed in 1928, right when the Art Deco movement was at its peak, so it kind of went with the trend at that time.

Spaces & Uses

The Beekman Tower Building reaches an architectural height of 285ft (87m). It has a total of 26 floors, served by 3 elevators.

When it opened its doors to the public in 1928, the Beekman Tower Building was primarily used as Residencial space. That however, is no longer the case, and today it mainly provides Hotel space.

About the Hotel

The hotel is a 3 stars category hotel, with a total of 173 rooms available to the public. The name of the hotel is The Beekman Tower, Trademark Collection by Windham.

285ft (87m)

Materials & Structure

The Beekman Tower Building uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade is non-load bearing either, as it is common in frame structure type buildings.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features brown bricks, stone, and concrete cladding the facade, with some stone moldings casted into the design of the pilasters.

Another material found at the Beekman Tower Building is spot floodlights, were used to highlight the volume of the facades.

Sources

  • www.hmdb.org