Bennett Building, Cast-iron building in Financial District, Manhattan, United States.
The Bennett Building is a cast-iron loft building in the French Second Empire style at 93-99 Nassau Street, spanning the block between Fulton and Ann Streets. It has ten full stories plus a two-story penthouse, with three designed facades of paneled pilasters, segmental-arched windows and cornices; the fourth side is plain brick.
James Gordon Bennett Jr. commissioned the building as an investment; Arthur D. Gilman designed it in the French Second Empire style, completed in 1872–1873 as a seven-story structure with a mansard roof. Investor John Pettit bought it in 1889 and hired James M. Farnsworth, who removed the mansard and added three floors plus a penthouse between 1890 and 1892, then an eleven-story annex on Ann Street in 1894. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated it a landmark on November 21, 1995.
The building is named after James Gordon Bennett Jr., publisher of the New York Herald, who commissioned it as an investment. In 1916 the Maiden Lane Historical Society placed a plaque on the facade. The ground floor was originally a raised basement, and the first entrances led to a stair landing that looks like a second floor from outside.
A subway staircase to the Fulton Street station, served by the 2, 3, 4, 5, A, C, J and Z trains, stands outside the southern facade on Fulton Street. The three street fronts can be walked in a loop, and the plain brick fourth side faces an adjacent property, so it is not visible from the street.
It houses one of the world's largest cast-iron facades and stands as one of only two Second Empire buildings with cast-iron cladding south of Canal Street. This remnant reveals how rare this combination of architectural style and material is in New York.
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