(Thompson, Holmes & Converse and Charles B. Meyers)
100 E 17th St - Northeast corner of Union Square
The Tammany Hall building was built between 1928-29 in a Colonial Revival architectural style to mimic the original Federal Hall in Wall Street, where president George Washington took the oath of office. This was a deliberate attempt by the scandal-ridden political club Tammany Hall to “legitimize” its image. It didn’t work, of course and the club died by the 1940’s, at which time it was bought by the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, reinforcing Union Square's historic role in the labor-union movement.
The building’s design employed specially molded bricks modeled after the bricks used by Democratic Party founder Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. The building was formally dedicated on July 4, 1929 with Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt and former Governor Alfred E. Smith as the chief speakers.
It was praised by the Real Estate Record for its “dignified architectural treatment, one of the chief motifs of which are the severe Colonial columns in the centers of the Union Square and Seventeenth-street facades which recall the days of early American architecture.”
A theatre company acquired the building, thereby returning Union Square to another of its historic roles — that of an entertainment center for the city. It was most recently occupied as the Off-Broadway Union Square Theater from 1985-2016, and the New York File Academy since 1994, plus several storefront commercial establishments. The building was also home to the Roundabout Theatre Company in an early stage of its development. The Union Square Theatre’s last production closed on January 3, 2016.
The building was landmarked in 2013 thanks to a nearly three-decade old push by USCC. Through these efforts, aided by the strong support from other preservation groups and elected officials USCC was finally successful in achieving Landmark status for the building.
www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/2490.pdf
“Seventeen speakers at the preservation commission’s public hearing in June favored the designation, which had been championed for years by Jack Taylor, an editor active in the Union Square Community Coalition,” the New York Times reported on November 17, 2013.
cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/tammany-by-sam-roberts/
On March 10, 2015, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to approve the construction of an addition, as well as façade renovations. The Tammany Hall building is currently being converted to a six-story office building which includes the addition of glass dome on top. Although the landmarked exterior will be preserved, sadly the interior, including its red brick and limestone auditorium-turned-theater was gutted.
Additional historical information about this building can be found on Landmarks Preservation Commission’s October 29, 2013, Designation List Report, researched and written by Gale Harris.
www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/2490.pdf
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