Downtown Athletic Club vs 1 Wall Street Building

Comparing the Downtown Athletic Club and the 1 Wall Street Building is interesting because they both stand in New York, NY, and were completed just one year apart, but they were designed by different architects.

This offers a unique glimpse at how rival designers approached projects in the same city during the same era.

The 1 Wall Street Building is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 653ft (199m) with 50 floors above ground, while the Downtown Athletic Club reaches 518ft (158m) with 35 floors above ground.

Of course, each project may have faced different briefs or regulatory constraints, which we don't really know about and could also explain the outcome.

Both the Downtown Athletic Club and the 1 Wall Street Building were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Art Deco style.

At the time, this style was at the height of its popularity. So both Starrett & van Vleck and Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

Both the Downtown Athletic Club and the 1 Wall Street Building are primarily residential towers, serving similar roles in the urban fabric.

However, both of them have shifted purpose since their completion. The Downtown Athletic Club evolved from sports to residential, while the 1 Wall Street Building moved from commercial to residential.

In terms of capacity, the Downtown Athletic Club offers 283 apartments, while the 1 Wall Street Building provides 566 units.

These two towers illustrate the many possible ways to combine structure and enclosure in skyscraper design.