page_title: 90 West Street
section_title: Planning and construction
hierarchical_section_title: 90 West Street / History / Planning and construction
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: West Street building Abstract/medium: 1 print&#160;: etching&#160;; 27.7 x 21.4 cm.
context_page_description: 90 West Street is a 23-story residential building in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is located on a plot bounded by West Street to the west, Cedar Street and the World Trade Center to the north, 130 Cedar Street to the east, and Albany Street to the south.
  The building was designed by Cass Gilbert, with Gunvald Aus and Burt Harrison as structural engineers, and John Peirce as general contractor. It was erected for the West Street Improvement Corporation, led by transportation magnate Howard Carroll. The Gothic styling and ornamentation of 90 West Street served to emphasize its height. The design combined elements of the three-section "classical column" arrangement of 19th-century buildings with the "romantic tower" of Gilbert's later structures such as the Woolworth Building. Its waterfront site necessitated the installation of pilings deep into the ground. Other features included a terracotta facade with granite at the two-story base, as well as terracotta fireproofing inside the building.
  90 West Street was built in 1905–1907 as an office building called the West Street Building.
context_section_description: The 1898 formation of the City of Greater New York resulted in a sharp increase in the number of buildings being erected in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, and by the 1900s decade, the neighborhood had 40 new office buildings. These included the United States Express Building (2 Rector Street), the Singer Building, and the Old New York Evening Post Building, which were under construction in the middle of that decade. Among the interested developers was the West Street Improvement Company, a collection of businesspersons in Lower Manhattan. The company, headquartered in the Broadway–Chambers Building, was led by Howard Carroll, and co-founded by John Peirce, Walter Roberts, and Judge S. P. McConnell.
  The West Street Improvement Company sought to erect an office structure particularly for the shipping interests along the Hudson River, the shoreline of which was located at West Street during the early 1900s. They selected a site between Albany and Cedar Streets with a lot length of 159 feet (48 m) facing West Street. The adjacent buildings on West Street contained warehouses and other facilities dedicated toward the railroad and steamship industries. Furthermore, the future site of the West Street Building was directly across West Street from ferry piers and docks, which in turn led to major ferry and rail terminals on the other side of the Hudson River.
  Carroll hired Gilbert to create a design in April 1905. Gunvald Aus and Burt Harrison were commissioned as the structural engineers while John Peirce was retained as the general contractor. The same year, the West Street Improvement Company and Gilbert submitted documents to the New York City Department of Buildings, proposing a 23-to-28 story office building that would cost about $2 million to build. Architecture professor Sharon Irish identified "fourteen preliminary sketches that include plans, elevations, and perspectives" for the building, varying in their level of detail. The design had to attract the more than 100,000 ferry passengers that traveled between New Jersey and New York each day, many of whom would visit the building's rooftop. The building's construction started in April 1906 and the structure was finished the next year.
caption: An early print of the West Street Building by Joseph Pennell
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