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 OLDEST -- Skyscraper in Kansas City, Missouri Posted by:  iconions
N 39° 06.220 W 094° 35.043
15S E 363031 N 4329475
The New York Life Building is a ten-story stone and brick building with a twelve-story tower is located at 20 West Ninth Street in Kansas City, Missouri.
Waymark Code: WMZ26T
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 08/29/2018
Views: 0
The New York Life Building is a 12-story, 54.86 m (180.0 ft) high-rise in the Library District of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The brick and brownstone tower, which was completed in 1890, generally is regarded as Kansas City's first skyscraper and was the first building in the city equipped with elevators. It was commissioned by the New York Life Insurance Company, which also used the same design for an identical building in Omaha that was completed in 1889. Several buildings around the world share its name. A centerpiece of the Library District neighborhood, the building is located amidst other, historic structures: it is across Ninth Street from the Kansas City Club and just down Baltimore Avenue from the Central Library.
Background
The building was designed in 1885 by Frederick Elmer Hill of the New York City architecture firm of McKim, Mead & White. Hill, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1882, came to Kansas City in 1885 initially to oversee the construction of his design but ended up staying until 1901, during which time he designed some other notable buildings. From 1893 until 1895, he was involved in the design and construction of what is today Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral on nearby Quality Hill. Hill also designed Convention Hall.
Built in Italianate Renaissance Revival style, the New York Life Building has a brick and brownstone exterior and an H-shaped footprint with ten-story wings flanking a twelve-story tower. A monumental bald eagle tending eaglets in a nest is perched above the main entry. The work was sculpted by Louis St. Gaudens and contains more than two tons of cast bronze. The lobby has an Italian granite atrium floor. The building's location marked the first significant movement of the city south from its founding at the River Market along the Missouri River. The imposing structure also marked a dramatic change in the skyline of Kansas City, where the tallest buildings previously had been three or four stories.
In 1970, the New York Life Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1988, however, it was abandoned. In 1996, a $35 million restoration of the building added modern energy, communications, and environmental features.
In 2010, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph purchased the building for $11.7 million. It now houses the diocese's administrative offices (the chancery) and the local branch of Catholic Charities, totaling about 180 employees. The building was renamed the Catholic Center.
- New York Life Building Wikipedia Page
The New York Life Building at the corner of Wall and Ninth Streets in Kansas City, Missouri is a large stone and brick building of Neo-Renaissance design built between 1887 and 1890. It is an H plan structure possessing two ten story arms linked together by a twelve story square tower. A classical facade design is applied to its south and west street elevations, while the north and east inner block sides remain unadorned.
EXTERIOR
The south facade of the New York Life Building is visually divided into a series of several major horizontal sections. The first two stories constitute the first of these sections. They are faced with ranged brownstone ashlar and cut by five arches, each thirty-three feet high. The central arch is the widest of the five and serves as the main entrance. Inside of the central arch are two polished granite monolithic columns of the Doric order. They rest on pedestals of Worcester granite and support a brownstone transom beam upon which appears "The New York Life Insurance Company." The semi-circular transom is fitted with a wrought iron grille.
The remaining four arches symmetrically flank the entrance, two to each side, and serve as frames for the first and second story window spaces.
The third story elevation of the south facade is purely transitional in design. Like the two floors below it, it is faced with brownstone and visually divided into five vertical areas. Over the central entrance is an open roof with a stone screen wall in front to soften the transition. To each side of the screen are two pairs of simple rectangular windows arranged directly over the windows of the lower levels. The window motif is repeated on the face of the tower wall.
The brownstone facing terminates at the fourth floor with a string course of that material, and the remainder of the building is common bond brick with quoins of brick and terra cotta to strengthen the corners. The fourth to seventh floors of the structure constitute the next horizontal section. It consists of five arches arranged in line with the arches at the lower levels, one on the tower elevation with two to each side on the arm facades. -The arches are four stories high and encompass a series of window pairs identical to those of the third story. A band of terra cotta ornament separates the sixth and seventh floors, while a terra cotta string-course terminates the section.
The next two floors make up the fourth architectural segment. Four two-story arches extend across the facade of each arm, each arch framing two windows placed one above the other. At this level the tower no longer repeats the fenestration of the arms, but only reflects it with two small windows in the center of the tower's eighth and ninth floors.
The fenestration of the arms ends with a series of eight small windows, four to either arm, which are placed directly above the line of lower windows and alternated with large circular terra cotta ornaments. The building terminates in a terra cotta architrave-cornice topped with antifixae.
The elevation of the west facade identically repeats the design of the south in eight vertical sections. The north and east sides are devoid of any ornamentation.
The tower above the roof line is broken on all four sides by three arch-framed windows. Above them is a terra cotta string-course which forms the base of three rectangular openings on each of the four sides. Each void is filled with a single, smooth, Ionic column. The tower is capped with a hip roof and finial reaching a total height of 210 feet.
Centered over the main entrance of Ninth Street is a sculpture of an eagle with outstretched wings, protecting her young from a large snake. The group is cast of one piece of bronze and weighs two tons. The eagle's wings measure twelve feet from tip to tip. (The Kansas City Star. Wednesday, February 25, 1891.)
- National Register Application
Type of documentation of superlative status: websites
Location of coordinates: Front of building
Web Site: [Web Link]
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