The Cunard Building, formerly the Standard & Poors Building, is a 22-story office building at 25 Broadway, across from Bowling Green Park, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The Cunard Building was designed in the Italian Renaissance style by Benjamin Wistar Morris, in conjunction with consultants Carrère & Hastings. The Cunard Building's facade and principal first-floor interior spaces are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district created in 2007.
The Cunard Building's main facade, on Broadway, is made of limestone and consists of three horizontal sections. The design employs setbacks and open "light courts" as mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution. The structure was designed around an irregular street grid and is located directly above a subway line that crosses the building site diagonally. The first floor interior contains an elaborately decorated lobby, as well as a similarly opulent Great Hall, which extends with a dome. The remaining floors contain various offices and school spaces.
The Cunard Building was erected for the New York City office of British steamship operator Cunard Line; construction started in 1920 and the building was completed the next year. Upon completion, the Cunard Building's exterior and interior designs received critical acclaim, and the building was almost fully leased to tenants in various industries. The Twenty-five Broadway Corporation, a Cunard Line affiliate, owned the building until the 1960s. The Great Hall was vacated after the Cunard Line moved out in 1968; the United States Postal Service occupied the Great Hall from 1974 until 2000, and Cipriani S.A. started using the space in 2014. The upper floors continued to host offices and various educational facilities.
Site The Cunard Building is a 22-story building, bounded by the Bowling Green Offices Building (11 Broadway) and 1 Broadway to the south, Broadway to the east, Greenwich Street to the west, and Morris Street to the north. It is located across from Bowling Green Park to the southeast, and 26 Broadway and the Charging Bull sculpture to the east. While 25 Broadway is considered to be its primary address, it is also known as 13–27 Broadway, 13–39 Greenwich Street, and 1–9 Morris Street. The Cunard Building has a frontage of along Broadway, along Greenwich Street, and along Morris Street. Due to the irregular street grid of the area, none of its corners are at right angles.
The Cunard Building was one of several structures built on the lower section of Broadway in the early 20th century that would be affiliated with the maritime trade. It was also one of several corporate headquarters to be constructed at the southern end of Broadway during the early 20th century.
Architecture The Cunard Building was largely designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris. The massing and facade were devised by Carrère and Hastings, while exterior detail was created by Rochette & Parzini. The structure was laid out so that ancillary structures such as smoke stacks, penthouses, and storage tanks could not be seen from the side. Its location near ferry slips, the New York City Subway, elevated Interborough Rapid Transit lines, and the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad's Hudson Terminal made the Cunard Building desirable to tenants. In the 1970s, the Cunard Building became known as the Standard & Poors Building, after its tenant Standard & Poor's, though the name also came to refer to nearby structures.
Form
The building is H-shaped, with "light courts" facing north toward Morris Street and south toward the Bowling Green Building. The "light courts" are located above the base. The placement of these courts allowed light to enter the Great Hall, located on the first floor. According to Morris, the irregular street grid of the neighborhood made it difficult to determine the orientation of the building; he finally decided on its current north–south alignment since, at the time, it would have been possible to see the North River (now the Hudson River) to the south.
At the time of the Cunard Building's construction, large buildings in New York City were being erected in a "C" or "H" shape to maximize illumination of the interior space. Additionally, the 1916 Zoning Resolution necessitated the inclusion of setbacks on buildings in New York City that were above a certain height. The Cunard Building was the first large structure built in the city after the end of World War I, and set an example for compliance to the 1916 law. Because of the presence of large intersections on either side of the building (Bowling Green to the east and the intersection of Greenwich Street and Trinity Place to the west), the required setback under the 1916 zoning law was minimal.
Foundation The New York City Subway's BMT Broadway Line (carrying the ) crosses diagonally underneath the Cunard Building from northwest to southeast. Two additional subway lines, the IRT Lexington Avenue Line () and the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (), run adjacent to the western and eastern boundaries of the building, respectively. The Lexington Avenue Line's Bowling Green station is located directly under the building's boundary, while the Broadway Line's Whitehall Street station is located one block south. Because of the subway tunnels in the area, the Cunard Building's foundation was built around the subway.
During construction, the engineers considered and rejected an idea for placing the Cunard Building's girders on the roof of the Broadway Line tunnel, since that would have resulted in vibrations every time a subway train passed by. Furthermore, the subway tunnel was designed to support the weight of several small buildings and might not have been able to support one large building. Instead, engineers decided to place the building's foundation columns on either side of the subway tunnel, and then erect girders for the building above the tunnel's roof. The foundation columns were placed as close to the subway tunnel as possible, in order to reduce the length of the trusses, which would have had to carry heavy loads. All of the foundation columns were sunk to the depth of the rock underneath.
A cofferdam was then built on the eastern border of the site, and on part of the northern border. The rock surface underneath the building site was closer to the ground on the western side of the lot, requiring extensive excavation. On the eastern side of the lot, the rock surface sloped below the elevation of the subway tunnel. A wall was built on the southern boundary of the Cunard lot, of which a width was located under the Bowling Green Offices Building. The wall served several purposes: it closed the cofferdam, underpinned the subway, and provided support for the columns on the southern side of the Cunard Building.
Facade
Broadway elevation
The facade of the Broadway elevation is made of Indiana Limestone, making the Cunard Building part of a masonry "canyon" on lower Broadway. It is divided horizontally into three sections; one author described the juxtaposition of these sections as "stacked classical compositions". The outermost portions of these facades consist of pavilions that project outward, while the central pavilion is set back . The projecting pavilions on either side rise to the maximum height allowed under the 1916 law. On the Broadway facade, the side pavilions are wide, while the central pavilion is about wide.
The Broadway elevation contains decorative elements that signify the area's historic connections with the maritime industry. These include "nautically-inspired sculpted elements", decorative keystones above the first-floor arches, decorative ship-themed roundels above the third-floor loggia, and carvings of seahorses with their riders above the pavilions' setbacks.
Within the four-story base, the central section is recessed slightly. The first floor contains five double-height arches, set within rusticated masonry, facing Broadway. The rusticated arcade is designed in a manner similar to that of 16th-century Italian villas. The center three arches, within the recessed central pavilion, lead to the Great Hall; the southernmost arch leads to the elevator lobby for the office space above; and the northernmost arch led to a banking area on the north side of the building. All the arches contain doors and windows with bronze frames. The third and fourth floors contain an Ionic-style loggia structure supported by Tuscan-style column pairs. Above the base, the facade is mostly composed of smooth limestone, except for rustication around the fifth story windows. The columns of windows around the central pavilion, which is recessed further, are also set within a rusticated facade. The outer pavilions are set back beyond the 18th story to comply with the 1916 Zoning Resolution. The central pavilion contains a loggia between the 19th and 21st stories, also supported by Tuscan-style column pairs, and includes a mansard roof above the 22nd story. The roofs of the outer pavilions, above the 22nd story, are flat.
Other elevations
On Morris Street, the first and second stories are faced with limestone, while the basement is faced with a water table made of granite. Above the second story is a light court. The facade of the eastern wing (facing Broadway) is limestone, while the rest of the Morris Street facade is made of tan brick. There are also numerous glazed doors with bronze frames, as well as glazed paneled windows with metal frames. The remaining windows on Morris Street are sash windows.
On Greenwich Street, the basement is faced with granite and the remaining stories are faced with tan brick. The basement contains service doors, a garage door, and metal window openings. Above the garage door is a large triple-height arched window on the first through third floors, with balconies on the second and third floors; the window is recessed at an angle. The remaining windows on Greenwich Street are sash windows. There is a cornice of stone above the 22nd floor. The southernmost section of the Greenwich Street facade only goes to the third floor to allow light to enter the light court within the southern side of the building. The gray brick at both Morris and Greenwich Streets was designed to "harmoniz[e] closely with the limestone".
The south elevation consists of a brick facade with sash windows. The light court faces south toward the Bowling Green Offices Building.
Interior At opening, the Cunard Building featured over of space, of which was made available for tenants when it opened. A basement in the building contained a safe-deposit vault. The building's superstructure was fireproof. According to data collected by The Real Deal magazine, the precise floor area of the Cunard Building is . The first floor contains numerous elaborate works of art.
The building also contained 36 elevators: 33 for passengers and 3 for freight. Of the passenger elevators, 28 were "high-speed" elevators for general use and the remaining 5 were private cabs. The elevators were clustered in the northwestern and eastern parts of the building. Twenty of the "high-speed" elevators were local and express elevators, accessible from the elevator lobby at the southern end of the Broadway facade. The other eight were located at the building's northwest corner, near Greenwich and Morris Streets.
Lobby