A M VICTORIAN DECORATIONS

Gramercy, New York City, New York, United States

The Consolidated Edison Building, constructed in stages between 1910 and 1929 for the Consolidated Gas Company, predecessor to Consolidated Edison, and designed by the leading architectural firms of Henry Hardenbergh and Warren & Wetmore, is a monumental presence in the Union Square neighborhood and has one of the great towers that define the Manhattan skyline. The earliest sections of the building, on East 15th Street and the northern end of the block front on Irving Place, built in two phases between 1910 and 1914, were among the last major works of the eminent architect Henry Hardenbergh. Hardenbergh’s eighteen-story, classically-inspired facades feature giant segmental arches and double-story porticos at the base and rusticated limestone piers balanced by strong horizontal moldings at the upper stories and are enlivened by a rich blend of Classical Revival and Renaissance motifs.

Hardenbergh also incorporated an early and historically-significant program of nighttime illumination in his design, which is reflected in the presence of light sockets on the spandrel panels, soffits, upper-story window embrasures, and crowning cornice of the 1910s wing. Between 1926 and 1929, Warren & Wetmore working in association with the engineering firm of Thomas E. Murray built two more additions on Irving Place and East Fourteenth Street, wrapping eighteen-story office wings, which matched the Hardenberghdesigned portions of the building, around a signature twenty-six-story corner tower. This monumental limestone-clad tower has a three-story colonnaded base and a setback tower featuring illuminated clocks, a bell chamber treated as colonnaded temple modeled on the Hellenistic Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, a bell-capped roof framed by corner obelisks, and a gigantic bronze-and-glass lantern. Characterized by the New Yorker as “a sturdy shaft, classic in detail and vigorous in silhouette,” the Consolidated Edison tower won critical praise and was among the finest of Warren & Wetmore’s late works. Dubbed the “Tower of Light” in corporate literature, the tower was intended to be both a symbol of one of the nation’s leading producers of power and light and a memorial to the company’s employees who had died in World War I and incorporates numerous devices in its decorative program such as torches and burning urns appropriate for a building associated with lighting and with funereal monuments. These dual purposes were also served by an elaborate program of nighttime illumination, inaugurated in July 1929. Although the lighting has been updated to reflect modern technology, the tower continues to be illuminated at night and remains in the words of the New York Times one of the “crowns of light [that] grace the skyline” and a symbol of Consolidated Edison, Inc. Consolidated Edison Inc. is the successor to a long line of power and light companies, beginning with New York Gas Light Company, founded 1823, which have played an integral role in the development of New York City. The Consolidated Edison and its predecessors, the Consolidated Gas Company of New York and New York Edison, have continuously been headquartered here since the building’s construction.
The Consolidated Gas Company Building, 1910-14

By 1910, the Consolidated Gas Company had outgrown its old office building. The company had converted the former Lotos Club Building at 2 Irving Place and a former residence on East 15th Street for use as offices and was housing a number of its departments in nearby buildings. During this period many of the older buildings in the neighborhood were being replaced by new office buildings, including the Everett Building (1908, Starrett & Van Vleck) and the Germania Life Insurance Company Building (1910-11, D'Oench & Yost) on the north side of East 17th Street at Park Avenue South. (Both are designated New York City Landmarks.) Consolidated Gas elected to replace its building with a new twelve-story office building designed by one the country’s leading architects, Henry Hardenbergh, who, a year earlier, had renovated a five-story building at 29 East 21st Street as showrooms for the company. To minimize the disruption to its business, the company opted to build the new building in two stages leaving its original headquarters building and the Lotos Club Building on Irving Place standing while it erected the first section of its new building on a sixty- two-foot-wide lot at 124-128 East 15th Street. Work began on the first section in January 1911 and was completed by late September 1911. By the time the first section was completed and the old offices were demolished, the company had decided to relocate the offices of its affiliates and subsidiary companies, notably the fast growing New York Edison Company, to its new building. Recognizing that a larger building would be needed, additional plots were acquired to the east on Fifteenth Street to extend the building

Stunning, a real treat for the eyes, this gorgeous console table is full of character and has a classic essence to it. Adds a delicate touch to your home, ideal in the living room, kitchen or bedroom alike. Remember, all of the products in this range are hand finished pieces made from 100% finest Sheesham wood (also known as Indian Rosewood) which is exclusively used to produce quality furniture for its high durability and rich medium brown colour with deep grains. Each piece of Sheesham furniture is unique and one of a kind due to the individual wood graining.