Woolworth Building

This Saturday we went for an amazing guided tour of the Woolworth Building. It is an early skyscrapper designed by Cass Gilbert in Manhattan. From 1913 to 1930, it was the tallest building in the world with a height of 241 meters - 60 stories and 29 elevators.

View of the lobby from the back

It was built to offer offices for companies and the idea was to impress people. The entrance was designed to look like a cathedral, a temple of business. The beginning was tough – people had never seen such a large building before and they were afraid of everything from getting into the elevator, to the whole thing falling down. The elevators look great, their doors in the lobby were designed by Tiffany Studios - nothing but the best. They benefit from an air-cushion system. When a test was performed that let a carton of eggs drop 20 floors, the air cushion allowed all 20 eggs to survive unscathed. The elevator system was really unique, in addition to this air-cushion system, the speed was the highest in the world. The architect, Gilbert instructed that it should not take more than one minute for visitors to reach the 51st of the building.

The building was built with the idea that workers should find inside the building everything they might need. The building had a post office, a barbershop, a restaurant, a swimming pool, a library, a gymnasium. People would be able to stay all day in the building and never leave, not even for their lunch break. The building also benefits from a direct entrance to the subway.

View from the lobby

The building is fascinating and the story of its sponsor is as interesting as the one of the building.

Mister Woolworth is the perfect illustration of the American dream. He began his career as a salesman in a general store. He learnt the difficulty with the typical business practice, at the time few items were labeled with price tickets and a clerk was responsible for obtaining an item for the customer and making the transaction. Woolworth begin to develop the idea that goods should sell themselves and should be labeled with price.

Woolworth borrowed $300 and opened a five-cent store in New York in February 1970. It failed within weeks, and he opened his second store in April 1879 in Pennsylvania. This is the beginning of the incredible success story of the Woolworth Company, by 1911 over 586 stores were open all around the country. In 1913 Woolworth built the Woolworth building in New York City at a cost of $13.5 million in cash (over 330 millions today)!

Woolworth died extremely rich, his company owned more than 1000 stores in the USA and other countries. The original chain went out of business in 1997. The UK stores continued to operate under separate ownership until they too finally succumbed in 2009. The remaining descendant of the Woolworth Company is the brand Foot Locker developed from 1974.