Carter's Review

This handsome, 12-story apartment building at 261 Broadway between Warren and Chambers streets across from City Hall Park in TriBeCa was erected in 1915 and was converted to 62 co-operative apartments in 1979.

It was designed by Rowe & Baker.

The building was once known as the City Hall Office Building and its tenants once included Scientific American.  Its site had been owned by the Gerry family and in 1811 Elbridge T. Gerry was governor of Massachusetts signed into law a bill redrawing a Congressional district.  According to a March 26, 1985 article in The New York Times, “his intention was to carve out a Democratic majority in a region historically loyal to the Federalist Party…[and] a newspaper editor derisively renamed the result a ‘Gerrymander.’”

Mr. Gerry would later become vice president of the United States.

In 1872, Thomas Cook opened his first travel office in the United States at this site.

In 1937, the Gerry Family leased this building to the Siack Realty Corporation headed by Simon Ackerman.

A January 12, 1938 article in The Times noted that “the old entrance and lobby, heavy with carved stone, marble and plaster vaults and arches, have been changed and the ceiling brought down to a twelve-foot height, with circular reflectors containing louvers to prevent light glare.”  “The walls are now covered,” it continued, “with dark red panels mounted on asbestos and laid off into rectangles, with a circular aluminum rosette in the center of each panel.  The old open iron elevator doors were replaced with solid patterned doors in red and silver, and the floor made of two colors of glass and marble terrazzo….The walls of the lobby are in white, laid out in a diamond pattern, and a curved single step has been substituted for the two previously there.  The jambs are tall and of marble, with black marble fascia over the transom, on which, lighted by inverted reflectors, are the numerals of the house number of the building crowned with a thin curved canopy of aluminum.”  The article said that the ground floor, basement and a portion of the second floor have been leased to the F. W. Woolworth Company, whose famous skyscraper is two blocks south on Broadway.

The Gerry family sold this office and showroom building in 1947 to Charles B. Benenson.

Bottom Line

With a prominent corner site across from City Hall Park, this beige-brick, mid-rise building has many wonderful views and is close to a subway station.

Description

This beige building is distinguished by its slightly curved window tops on the second floor and it unusual and attractive decoration of its top two floors with incisions that visually make up effectively for the building’s lack of a cornice.

The building’s sculptural texture is augmented by a strong dentilated bandcourse above the second floor, a stringcourse above the third floor and a large and broad bandcourse above the 10^th floor. 

The building has protruding air-conditioners and no sidewalk landscaping.

Amenities

The building has a landscaped roof deck, a live-in superintendent, a full-time porter, bicycle storage and a second-floor laundry.

Apartments

Apartment 12EF is a three-bedroom unit with a 12-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a 26-foot-long living/dining room adjacent to an 17-foot-wide, windowed, pass-through kitchen and a 21-foot-long, windowed library/homme office and a 17-foot-long media room.

Apartment 12B is a two-bedroom unit with a 28-foot-long living/dining room with an open, 16-foot-wide, windowed kitchen with an island.

Apartment 11E is a two-bedroom unit with an 11-foot-wide entry foyer that leads to a 27-foot-long living/dining room and a 16-foot-widem pass-through kitchen.

Apartment 4A is a one-bedroom unit with a 21-foot-long living room with an enclosed 12-foot-long kitchen.