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Exploring Lower Manhatattan
Equitable Building
120 Broadway, Graham, Anderson, Probst and White Architects, 1912-15
Vast, looming and dark by comparison to all previous skyscrapers, on completion the Equitable Building could claim the title of, if not the tallest, then certainly the largest office building in the world.
Successful life insurance companies like Equitable, with large amounts of capital at their disposal, emerged as among the first and most important builders of skyscrapers. The first Equitable headquarters, also built on this site (1868-70), has been reckoned the first American skyscraper.
Its successor, in its day both the largest office building and the heaviest structure on earth, could accommodate over 12,000 people, far more than could fit in the surrounding streets. Builder Louis Horowitz wrote that, on completion, its 1,200,000 square feet of space "seemed almost like a new continent, so vast and vacant were its many floors." |