The Woolworth Building in New York opened on this day in 1913.

Woolworth building
image credit: By Norbert Nagel, Mörfelden-Walldorf, Germany [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

The Woolworth Building opened on April 24, 1913.

Woolworth building
image credit: By Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
On completion, the Woolworth Building topped the record set by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower as the world’s tallest building.

The Woolworth Building was designed in the neo-Gothic style by the architect Cass Gilbert.

Woolworth Building
image credit: By New York Public Library – https://www.flickr.com/photos/nypl/3524538238/, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53573373

Frank Woolworth commissioned Gilbert to design a 20-story office building as the F. W. Woolworth Company’s new corporate headquarters on Broadway.

Originally designed to be 420 feet (130 m) high, the building was eventually elevated to 792 feet (241 m).

Woolworth building
image credit: By George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress) – Library of Congress, call number LC-B2- 2416-4, reproduction number LC-DIG-ggbain-10564; via Flickr, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12445893

At its opening, the Woolworth Building was 60 stories tall and had over 5,000 windows.

The construction cost was US$13.5 million.

New York Colin Campbell Cooper
Hudson River Waterfront, N.Y.C., Colin Campbell Cooper, oil on canvas, 36 x 29 in, New York Historical Society. Included in the view are the Woolworth and Singer buildings, then the first and second tallest buildings in the world. Painted between 1913 and 1921. image credit: [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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