15 Union Square (An historical revision)

1870- Tiffany building built at 15 USW. Steel and brick structure with cast iron facade (designed by John Kellum).
1903- Tiffany moved out. Building used as warehouse.
1925- Amalgamated Bank moved in.



1953- pedestrian killed by falling piece of cast iron. Cast iron facade stripped and building reclad in brick.



2008- 1953 brick cladding removed to reveal original steel staunchion structure beneath. The work at 15 Union Square West proceeds under black netting.





They didn’t demolishing all of 15 USW, but rather stripping off the entire facade which was added in the 1950s over the original 1870s Tiffany building — and then adding-on / re-doing for the “new” 12-story 185′ tall residential building.



Brack Capital Real Estate USA acquired the six-story, 80,000-square foot Amalgamated Bank Building at 15 Union Square West on the southwest corner at 15th Street for $80 million in 2006.
In an article in the July 2, 2006 edition of The New York Times, Christopher Gray wrote that “the politest thing to say about the blocky white blob of a building at the south corner of 15th Street and Union Square West is that it’s homely,” adding that “buried beneath the 1953 façade is the 1870 building of Tiffany & Company,” a cast-iron building designed by John Kellum. Tiffany moved from this location in 1903 to 401 Fifth Avenue at 37th Street and is now at 57th Street and Fifth Avenue.





A giant 31-by-21-foot room with 16-foot ceilings and 17-foot low-iron impeccably clear windows overlooking Union Square would normally be enough to overwhelm your real estate senses. But then you’d see the 15-foot cast-iron stanchions. Left over from the building’s first life as the Tiffany & Co. headquarters, they curve toward the high ceilings like your own personal Roman aqueduct.Eran Chen, the architect and Brack Capital Real Estate, the developer, decided to highlight the stanchions, making them the focal point of the apartments on the building’s first five floors.



With interiors by New York’s Vicente Wolf, the homes have exquisite details like 2-inch-tall horizontal air slits, uniform shades that come down from the top and up from the bottom, claw-foot bathtubs, limestone and oak foyers and shagreen finishes – made of shark skin – under the master bathroom sinks. (Shagreen perfectly absorbs bathroom moisture and is easy to clean. Perfected by the master leather worker for France’s King Louis XV.)

The exterior of the building has recieved mixed reviews- some people believe that the new glass facade was too cudely detailed and that it didn’t expose the old Victorian structure well enough.
However, I believe that this building has the typical New York innovative flair that we all love.