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W New York Union Square
W New York Union Square
org/wiki/W_New_York_Union_Square
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Contents Former names Germania Life
History Insurance Company
Context Building
Use as office building Guardian Life
Conversion to hotel Insurance Company
Building
Site
Hotel chain W Hotels
Design
Facade General information
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Status Open
Roof
Interior Type Hotel, office
Union Square was first laid out in the Commissioners' Coordinates 40°44′12″N
Plan of 1811, expanded in 1832, and then made into a 73°59′21″W
public park in 1839. The completion of the park led to the Completed 1911 (original
construction of mansions surrounding it. After the building)
American Civil War, Union Square became a primarily 1961 (annex)
commercial area and many mansions were destroyed. Renovated 2000
[6][7] By the first decade of the 20th century, Union
Owner Marriott Hotels &
Square had grown into a major transportation hub with Resorts
several elevated and surface railroad lines running
Management Starwood
nearby, and the New York City Subway's 14th Street–
Union Square station having opened in 1904.[7][8] Height 281 feet (86 m)
Technical details
In August 1909, the Real Estate Record and Guide
Floor count 21 (original building)
announced that D'Oench & Yost had been hired to build
4 (annex)
a new 20-story headquarters for the Germania Life
Lifts/elevators 8
Insurance Company at the northeast corner of Fourth
Avenue (now Park Avenue South) and 17th Streets.[9][10] Design and construction
The company, founded in 1860 to serve New York City's Architect Albert D'Oench &
German community,[11][12] occupied several successive Joseph W. Yost
buildings before settling at a six-story building at Cedar (original building)
and Nassau Streets in Manhattan's Financial District. Skidmore, Owings &
[13][14] The Nassau Street building had suffered from Merrill (annex)
structural problems, the most serious being a sinking Other information
foundation,[15] and it was sold to March 1909.[13][16] The Number of rooms 270
company also could no longer rent out its vacant space at
Nassau Street at a profit, and its directors sought to build Germania Life Insurance Company
a new headquarters in advance of its 50th anniversary. Building
When Germania's directors decided to buy the Park U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Avenue site in mid-1909 at a cost of $350,000, the NYC Landmark #1541, 2247
directors wanted to ensure that their headquarters would
not be overshadowed by its neighbors, so they directed
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company was renamed the Guardian Life Insurance Added to NRHP May 25, 2001
Company to avoid associations with Germany, which had (original building only)
become one of the Central Powers that the United States Designated NYCL September 6, 1988
was fighting against.[10][11] The company then changed (original building,
the large "Germania Life Insurance Company" sign on #1541)[2]
the headquarters' roof to read "Guardian Life Insurance November 18, 2008
Company". [21][22] Several other alterations took place (annex, #2247)[3]
over the years, including the removal of the 16th-story
cornice in 1940 and replacement of the storefront windows in 1957.[23] Further, the entrance lobby
from Park Avenue South was renovated in the 1960s and the 1980s.[23]
By the mid-20th century, Guardian Life had grown considerably, with $2 billion in assets by
1960.[24] Guardian had also occupied all of its vacant space in the building,[25] and to alleviate the
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During the 1980s, Guardian Life expanded again to 225/233 Park Avenue South, signing a lease for
44,000 square feet (4,100 m2). Guardian signed a lease for 23,000 square feet (2,100 m2) in a
fourth building, 215 Park Avenue South, in the early 1990s.[25][28]
Conversion to hotel
In 1998, Guardian Life moved its headquarters to the Financial District of Manhattan, with plans
to sell their old headquarters.[28][29] The next year, The Related Companies announced that the
Guardian Life Insurance Company Building would be renovated into a 250-room hotel operated by
hotel chain Starwood.[30] The hotel would be the first in the Union Square neighborhood.[31] As
part of the conversion, Related planned to remove the red neon "Guardian Life Insurance
Company" sign and replace it with "W New York Union Square", the name of the W Hotels resort
that would occupy the building. Workers removed the last two letters of the sign before the city
announced that the removal had been illegal, saying that the Landmarks Preservation Commission
had to approve the sign's removal.[32] The hotel opened in December 2000, with 270 rooms,[33]
and the "W Union Square" sign was added to the roof.[34] The basement was used by several event
spaces,[35] including Rande Gerber's Underbar lounge and Todd English's Olives restaurant.[36]
The annex was not included in the hotel conversion and continued to be used as offices.[28]
The W New York Union Square was sold in 2006 for $285 million to Istithmar World ,a Dubai
government-owned investment group named [?] . The sales of the W New York Union Square and
the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai in Hawaii, both at rates of over $1 million per room, at the time
were the highest-ever selling rates for hotels that were not scheduled for renovation.[36] In 2014,
Gerber Group took over the Olives restaurant at the W New York Union Square and renovated it
into a restaurant called the Irvington, after Washington Irving, the namesake of nearby Irving
Place.[35] Marriott Hotels & Resorts purchased the W New York Union Square in October 2019 for
$206 million, with plans to renovate the building.[34][37]
Site
The W New York Union Square building's site measures 80 feet (24 m) along Park Avenue South
and 115 feet (35 m) along 17th Street.[38][39][40] The building is located at the northeast corner of
that intersection, diagonally across from Union Square to the southwest.[38][39] Its immediate
neighbors include the four-story International Style Guardian annex and several rowhouses to the
east; the former Tammany Hall building at 44 Union Square to the south; the Everett Building
across Park Avenue to the west; and a five-story commercial building and a 20-story loft structure
to the north.[38]
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Design
The W New York Union Square building is 21 stories tall, with
the 18th through 21st stories being located within the mansard
roof. A "light court" on the north side of the building gives it a
U-shaped footprint.[39] According to building plans, D'Oench
and Yost considered the Germania Life Building's main roof to
be a flat roof above the 17th floor.[38] The building is divided
into three vertical sections: a three-story base with a ground
floor and two-story "transitional section"; a 12-story "shaft"
below another 2-story "transitional section"; and the four-story
roof.[41] The building rises 290 feet (88 m) above ground level.
Two basement levels are located below ground level, and there
is a mezzanine between the second and third floors.[40]
Facade
The W New York Union Square building facade is composed mostly of gray Concord granite
interspersed with brick,[38][39] except for the red Numidian-granite water table, and the red
Spanish-tile mansard roof.[39] The foundation walls are made of brick, mortar, and cement.[38] On
all floors, there are eight architectural bays, three facing Park Avenue to the west and five facing
17th Street to the south.[39][44]
The ground floor facade is rusticated with several rows of beveled masonry blocks, and deep
crevices between each row of blocks. In each of the ground-floor bays, there are rusticated arches
with foliate keystones.[39][44] The arches formerly contained storefronts until the building's
conversion into a hotel.[39] The main entrance is from the northernmost arch on Park Avenue
South. A belt course runs on the facade between the ground and second floors.[39][44] The second
and third floor facades are also rusticated with beveled blocks but have shallower crevices between
each row. The center bay on Park Avenue South and the center three bays on 17th Street contain
double-story arched openings with keystones at top, while each of the bay at the ends of each
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facade contain two windows per floor.[44][45] On the Park Avenue South side, there is a small iron
balcony projecting from the third story of the double arch, with the initials "G" and "L" on the iron
railing.[39][44] The third floor facade is topped by a denticulated (tooth-like) cornice.[44][45] Signs
with the company name were formerly located above the third floor on both the Park Avenue South
and 17th Street sides.[44]
The facades of the fourth through 15th floors are largely uniform, with shallow belt courses and
quoins in the spaces between each set of windows. Shallow balconies on the fourth floor, with stone
colonnades, are located above the denticulated third-floor cornices on the Park Avenue South and
17th Street sides, and run across nearly the entire width of both facades. On the west and east
facades, the fenestration or window arrangement is in a 2-3-2 format, i.e. there are two windows
per floor on the side bays and three windows per floor in the central bay. On the south facade, the
fenestration is in a 2-2-2-2-2 format, i.e. five bays with two windows each.[44][45] The beige-brick-
clad north facade contains the recessed "light court" and is divided into two asymmetric sections,
both with simple window openings.[23][39] The center bays on the west and south facades contain
projecting windowsills on the fourth through 14th floors. Above the 15th and 17th stories are stone
cornices.[44][45] The 16th story also used to have a cornice above it, but the cornice was replaced
around 1940 with a fascia of sheet metal.[23][45] The 16th floor contains panels depicting torches
and shields in the spaces between each bay, while the 17th floor facade is unadorned.[45]
Roof
The W New York Union Square building's most prominent
feature is its four-story mansard roof, which contains dormer
windows, escutcheons, and five decorative keystones with
garlands.[46]:158[21] On the 18th story, the west and east
facades contain fenestration in a 2-3-2 format and the south
facade contains fenestration in a 2-3-3-3-2 format. On the 19th
story, the west and east facades' fenestration is in a 1-3-1
format and the south facade's fenestration is in a 1-3-3-3-1
format.[45][47] There are carved scallops atop each of the Mansard roof detail, seen from the
window groupings on the 18th and 19th stories.[45] On the ground at Union Square
20th story, the west and east facades contain a triple window
in the center, topped by a large triangular pediment, while
there are two standalone dormer windows on each side of the triple window, all with smaller
pediments. The south side of the 20th story contains ten dormer windows, all with pediments. On
the 21st story, there are five round-arched dormer windows on the west and east facades, and eight
round-arched dormer windows on the south facade. A horizontal band runs at the top of the 21st
story facade, below a cornice, while vertical acroteria run along the roof's corners.[45][47]
The roof was influenced by both 19th-century French architecture and the Second Empire style.
[21][46]:22 Inspiration also came from the now-demolished New York Tribune Building (completed
1905) in Civic Center, Manhattan, which was topped by a three-story mansard roof.[21] In addition,
during the 1870s, Germania had added a mansard roof to their otherwise unadorned Italianate
headquarters in the Financial District.[48][18] D'Oench and Yost had decided to retain this feature
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in their design for the new building.[41][49] The roof also incorporates several features of German
architectural styles because of the company's and D'Oench's German roots. For example, the
designs of the dormer windows are different for each floor, and there is elaborate decoration,
consistent with 16th-century German architecture.[41]
On top of the roof is a horizontal lighted sign with white letters. It originally contained the letters
"Germania Life". The sign was changed to "Guardian Life" in 1917 upon the company's renaming.
[21][22] Most of the letters seem to have been reused when the sign was replaced, while the letters
"E" and "M" were replaced with a "U" and "D".[41] The sign was later replaced with a "W Union
Square" sign.[34]
Interior
The floors were made of multicolored marble pattern on the ground-floor main entrance,
"Taylorite" tile on the ground-floor retail area, terrazzo with mosaic borders on the second through
fourth floors, and cement on the fifth through 20th stories and in the basements. The ground-floor
entrance area also contained white English veined marble on the walls, capped by stucco
decoration. The restrooms were designed with hexagonal-tiled floors, tile wainscoting, and stalls
made with marble barriers.[43] Inside the building were eight elevators, five for passenger use and
three for freight transport. There were also two enclosed hallways on each floor, and two enclosed
staircases within the building.[41][50]
One particularly heavily-ornamented interior space is the second-story elevator lobby, which
contains a marble floor and English marble walls and ceilings.[23][43] The elevator lobby is
supported by round arches that divide it into an arcade with five domes. Directly to the south,
accessed through three sets of openings,[23] is a 66-by-35-foot (20 by 11 m), double-height space,
originally used for selling insurance before being converted into the W Hotel ballroom.[51] The
lower halves of the ballroom's walls contain marble wainscoting.[23] Various ornaments,
cartouches, and motifs are located throughout the ballroom, including several instances of
Guardian Life's initials.[52]
See also
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National Register of Historic Places listings in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets
List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets
References
Notes
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External links
W New York Union Square (https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/nycnu-w-new-york-union-sq
uare/), Marriott website
W New York Union Square (https://www.emporis.com/buildings/115362) at Emporis
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