Starrett–Lehigh Building
Commercial building in Manhattan, New York / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Starrett–Lehigh Building is a 19-story building at 601 West 26th Street, occupying the full block between Eleventh Avenue, 26th Street, Twelfth Avenue, and 27th Street, in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was built between 1930 and 1931 by the Starrett Corporation and the Lehigh Valley Railroad (LV), who formed a joint venture to develop a freight terminal and warehouse to replace the railroad's previous freight terminal. The structure was designed by the firm of Cory & Cory, with Yasuo Matsui as the associate architect and the firm of Purdy & Henderson as the consulting structural engineers. The Starrett–Lehigh Building has largely been used as an office building since the late 1990s.
Starrett–Lehigh Building | |
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General information | |
Architectural style | International Style/Art Deco[1] |
Location | 601 West 26th Street Manhattan, New York United States |
Coordinates | 40°45′06″N 74°00′24″W |
Construction started | 1930 |
Completed | 1931 |
Renovated | 1998 |
Cost | $6–9 million (est.)[1] |
Owner | RXR Realty |
Height | 296 feet (90 m)[2][3] |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 19 |
Floor area | 2,300,000 square feet (210,000 m2) |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Cory and Cory |
Developer | Starrett Corporation |
Website | |
www | |
Designated | October 7, 1986 |
Reference no. | 1295 |
Much of the Starrett–Lehigh Building is 18 stories tall; the central portion is 19 stories tall, while the westernmost portion is nine stories tall due to the site's geology. The building's facade has alternating bands of steel strip windows, brickwork, polygonal corners, and large setbacks. The interior has large concrete floor plates, with a total volume of 26 million cubic feet (740,000 m3) and a rentable floor area of 1.8 million square feet (170,000 m2). There was a rail yard and driveways at ground level, as well as three freight elevators that carried trucks to delivery bays on the upper levels. Widely acclaimed on its completion, the Starrett–Lehigh Building was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art's 1932 "Modern Architecture: International Exhibition", and its design was imitated by other structures. Although the exterior remains intact, the railroad tracks have been removed, and many of the old freight-delivery areas have been converted into amenity spaces.
A freight terminal on the site was announced in 1928, and the LV acquired the lots in early 1930; the Starrett Corporation leased the site's air rights later that year. The building was completed in December 1931 and sold to the LV the next year following the death of William A. Starrett, head of the Starrett Corporation. The LV sold the building to Jacob Friedus in 1944, and the rail lines were removed in the mid-20th century. Occupancy peaked in the 1940s and early 1950s, when 5,000 people worked at the Starrett–Lehigh Building, but the structure was 40 percent vacant by the early 1970s. Harry Helmsley acquired the building at an auction in 1974 and owned it until his death in 1997. A syndicate of investors bought the Starrett–Lehigh Building in 1998 and renovated it, attracting dot-com companies and later fashion firms. The structure was sold again in 2011 to RXR Realty, which conducted further renovations in the late 2010s and early 2020s.