Corbin Building ARCHITECT: Francis H. Kimball DATE: 1889 STYLE: Skyscraper The Corbin Building was constructed in 1888-89 as a speculative office building by Austin Corbin. Corbin was a successful banker and businessman who had developed Coney Island as a resort area. The Corbin Building was the tallest structure on the block when it was first built. It was constructed using the cage technique, with cast-iron columns and wrought-iron beams and non-load bearing masonry walls, before true steel skeleton structures had been developed. The flamboyant exterior, composed of a variety of materials, window shapes and decorative ornament belongs to the category of early, artistic skyscrapers that were built in New York City in the 1870s and 80s.

A walking tour of some of Lower Manhattan's most notable landmarks.

The Corbin Building was erected in 1889 by architect Francis Hatch Kimball. The structure is a rare surviving example of late 19th-century commercial architecture. While hardly qualifying as a skyscraper today, at nine stories the building towered over its neighbors in 1889. Its slender form, dark stone, and eclectic detail stand in stark contrast to the neoclassical and International Style towers around it. This building is an early design of Francis Kimball, who emerged as a leading skyscraper architect in the 1890s and early 1900s. His buildings include 71 Broadway, 111 Broadway, and 115 Broadway.

Evening Post Building ca. 1926 Completed in 1875, the same year as the Tribune Building, the headquarters of the of the Evening Post was an imposing ten-story, 140-foot tall structure that stood on the southeast corner of Broadway and Fulton Street. Like the Tribune, it was a load-bearing brick structure with stone trim, but its vaguely Romanesque style was restrained and utilitarian, with the exception of a low mansard-like cupola above the central bay and heavy stone piers and columnettes that framed the main entrance. The architect was the little-known Thomas Stent, who took over the commission from an earlier architect dismissed from the project. The Post wrote in its July 1, 1875 supplement on the new building that its simplicity would be "admired more for its massiveness and substantiality, and for its complete adaptation to the uses for which it was constructed, than for anything peculiar or striking in its outlines or extravagant in the treatment of its interior." The main Broadway entrance, raised a half-story above street level, as was common at the time, led to the major commercial spaces and the lobby access to the hydraulic elevators. The upper floors were partitioned offices, all leased to tenants except for the top floor, which was reserved for the paper's editorial offices and space for the compositors. The printing presses and other machinery operated in the basement levels, and compositors of the job-printing department worked in the vault spaces below the sidewalks on Broadway and Fulton Street. The New-York Evening Post was originally established in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton and his political allies as a Federalist broadsheet after the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency. Famed poet and abolitionist William Cullen Bryant took over the paper in 1828 and served as its editor-in-chief for fifty years. The Post changed its format from broadsheet to tabloid in 1942, under the tenure of Dorothy Schiff, after which circulation grew by two thirds. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch purchased the paper in 1976.

A walking tours through Lower Manhattan's skyscraper canyons and more than a century of high-rise construction. This walk focuses on the buildings around Broadway. This story is adapted from an exhibition at the Skycraper Museum. The original version can be seen here.