Frank W. Woolworth, the five-and-dime store king, commissioned architect Cass Gilbert to design a Gothic-style skyscraper on a full block front on Broadway between Park Place and Barclay Street. When the building was erected it rose across the street from the main downtown Post Office by Alfred Mullett. This massive mansarded structure of 1875 was later demolished and the site reclaimed as part of City Hall Park. Woolworth wanted his building to become the tallest in New York, and in the world, which meant that it needed to raise more than 700 feet– the height of the Metropolitan Life Tower. As the height escalated from a projected 625 feet to 792 feet, the cost grew from an estimated $5 million to the final cost of $13.5 million. Extensive foundations and wind bracing necessary for the tall tower as well as the ornate terra-cotta cladding and sumptuous interior fittings both inflated costs and created one of the masterpieces of early skyscraper design. The exterior is clad in a cream-colored terra cotta with subtle blue and yellow accents in the glaze. The design evokes the guildhall architecture of France and Belgium. Above the 24th floor a tower rises to the equivalent of 55-stories and is capped by a high-pitched copper roof, now a green patina, crowned with tracery and gargoyles. An observation deck, once open to the public, has been closed for decades. The sumptuous lobby features marble, fine mosaics and a rich program of sculpture, including brackets with medieval-style caricatures, including Mr. Woolworth counting his dimes and Gilbert cradling a model of the building. Allegorical murals of Commerce and Labor and ceiling vaults accented with thousands of gold tesserae make the lobby seem like a church. Indeed, the gothic tower was nicknamed "The Cathedral of Commerce." Mr. Woolworth financed the skyscraper in cash, which was unusual for a project of this size and cost, and he noted that the tower would be a valuable generator of publicity for the company. Still, through the 1910s, the Woolworth Company only occupied one and a half stories of the building. The rest of the building was occupied by more than 1,000 tenants. For most of the twentieth century, the building never had a mortgage -- something almost unheard of for such a large commercial structure. In 1998 the Woolworth Company's successor, the Venator Group, sold the tower for $155 million: this was the first time the property changed hands in its 85-year history. At the time of its completion, the Woolworth Building was widely praised for its elegant massing and the slender proportions of its tower. It was a paradigm of responsible high-rise architecture for the slender tower. which did not significantly limit the amounts of light reaching the street. Its slender silhouette contrasts strongly with the bulk of 120 Broadway, the Equitable Building, completed in 1915. Still, as a business proposition, the building's tower section has always been impractical since its floor-plate allowed only a small number of elevators, hardly enough to serve the needs of the first class office space it was intended to house. This problem may be rectified with the tower's conversion to residential use - a program that will not require such high elevator capacity.

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

Woolworth Building ca. 1939 Frank Woolworth opened his first store in 1879. By 1910, he owned more than 600 Woolworth five-and-dime stores nationwide. On the prestigious site he acquired on Broadway across from City Hall Park, he envisioned a Gothic building soaring taller than the Metropolitan Life Insurance Building at the time the world's tallest skyscraper. Architect Cass Gilbert, knowing that an authentic Gothic building of this scale would be impractical, built a modern steel skeleton clad in masonry and terra cotta with Gothic details. From the 30-story base rose a 25-story tower, for a combined height of 792 feet. Nicknamed the Cathedral of Commerce, it reigned as the world's tallest skyscraper from its completion in 1913 until William Van Alen's Chrysler Building surpassed it in 1929. A 1980s restoration of the exterior cost more than the original construction.

Yep, NYC had a well-known firecracker district in the late 19th and early 20th century. Firecracker Lane was a short row of fireworks businesses on Park Place between Broadway and Church Street. James Pain was famous for his pyrotechnic shows, particularly his extravaganza in Manhattan Beach which for two weeks each summer nightly recreated the blaze that burned down the city of Pompeii (while "rebuilding" the city each day). This spectacle was an annual Manhattan Beach excitement for more than 25 years at the end of the 19th century. And Pain's Fireworks stood at 12 Park Place until they filed for bankruptcy in 1927, which was blamed in part (by the company and the press at the time) on a movement called "safe and sane Fourth." This was an effort by municipalities to prevent injuries and death from the explosives and instead to focus the holiday on family time and picnics.

Once the tallest building in the world, the Woolworth Building remains one of Cass Gilbert's Masterpieces.

Listen to the Gotham Center and Gail Fenske's podcast on the history of the Woolworth Building, once the tallest building in the world, while examining these archival images!

The Woolworth Building, 1913. The F.W. Woolworth Company commissioned the building in 1910 to serve as their new corporate headquarters. Initially conceived as a 20-story skyscraper, designed by Cass Gilbert, it eventually significantly outstripped the original plan. On completion in 1912, the Woolworth Building stood 57-stories and cost 13.5 million dollars. In fact the neo-Gothic skyscraper was the tallest in the world between 1913 and 1930. Frank Woolworth, the building's patron, was so pleased that he gave Gilbert a 15 pound commemorative silver Tiffany bowl. Though sold by the modern incarnation of Woolworth's in 1998, the building has been a National Historic Landmark since 1966 and a New York City Landmark since 1983.

New York, the city of great heights. Let's admire some buildings that were at one time the tallest!

Of all the architectural styles, the Gothic seemed to lend itself best to skyscraper design. Cass Gilbert, using his West Street Building (Brady Building) as a trial balloon, arrived a remarkably expressive result in this high, self-washing, terra-cotta-clad building.

Between 1954 and 1957, the Municipal Art Society surveyed historic buildings in all five boroughs to create a database of potential landmarks to preserve. Local residents and MAS staff compiled individual sheets devoted to about 200 buildings. Each sheet outlined the building’s date, location, and style and provided a description and a small photograph. This is the list of Manhattan buildings.

A walking tour through Lower Manhattan's skyscraper canyons and more than a century of high-rise construction. This walk focuses on the buildings around City Hall. This story is adapted from the Skyscraper Museum's "Ten Tops" exhibition.