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Foundation Company construction photographs

Call Number

PR 336

Date

1906–1911, inclusive

Creator

Chicago Architectural Photo Company

Extent

1.66 Linear feet (1 box)

Language of Materials

This collection is primarily visual. Any text is likely to be in English.

Abstract

Five mounted photographs documenting building construction projects of the Foundation Company, headquartered at 115 Broadway, New York, N.Y.

Historical Note

The Foundation Company, headquartered in the early twentieth century at 115 Broadway (with branch offices in Chicago, New Orleans, and Montreal), specialized in constructing building foundations by "pneumatic caissons, open caissons, sheet-piling (either wood or steel), concrete piles, hollow steel pipe filled with concrete, wooden piles, cofferdams, and various other approved methods." The roster of their projects in the 1913 issue of Sweet's Catalogue of Building Construction, Architects and Builders Edition includes many prominent Manhattan structures, among them the Standard Oil Building (26 Broadway), Wall Street Exchange (43 Exchange Place), Western Union Building (Broadway and Dey Street), Municipal Building (1 Centre Street), U.S. Realty and Trinity Buildings (115 and 111 Broadway), and the Woolworth Building (233 Broadway). For more on the Foundation Company's role in constructing the latter, see Gail Fenske, The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).

Arrangement

The five photographs are foldered chronologically in one box.

Scope and Contents

The collection contains five mounted construction photographs. The locations of only two sites are positively identified: the Trinity Building (111 Broadway; see Folder 1) and the Woolworth Building's engine room (233 Broadway; see Folder 4). Only two of the images bear photographer's imprints on the reverse: Wurts Bros. of New York took the Woolworth Building engine room view (Folder 4), and the Chicago Architectural Photographing Co. took the unidentified view that possibly shows construction of the Chicago and Northwestern Terminal (now called Ogilvie Transportation Center) in Chicago (Folder 2). The Foundation Company worked on the Chicago and Northwestern Terminal for George A. Fuller Company, Builders, whose sign appears in the lower right corner of the photograph.

Conditions Governing Access

Materials in this collection may be stored offsite. For more information on making arrangements to consult them, please visit www.nyhistory.org/library/visit.

Use Restrictions

Taking images of documents from the library collections for reference purposes by using hand-held cameras and in accordance with the library's photography guidelines is encouraged. As an alternative, patrons may request up to 20 images per day from staff.

Application to use images from this collection for publication should be made in writing to: Department of Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5194, rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282.

Copyrights and other proprietary rights may subsist in individuals and entities other than the New-York Historical Society, in which case the patron is responsible for securing permission from those parties. For fuller information about rights and reproductions from N-YHS visit: https://www.nyhistory.org/about/rights-reproductions

Preferred Citation

This collection should be cited as the Foundation Company Construction Photographs, PR 336, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, The New-York Historical Society.

Location of Materials

Materials in this collection may be stored offsite. For more information on making arrangements to consult them, please visit www.nyhistory.org/library/visit.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Katie Huxford, 2016. These photographs descended to the donor from her paternal grandfather, an Irish immigrant pipefitter, whom she believes worked for the Foundation Company or the George A. Fuller Company.

Collection processed by

Joseph Ditta, August 2017

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-21 15:51:29 -0400.
Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language: Description is written in: English, Latin script.

Processing Information

Processed by Archivist Joseph Ditta, August, 2017.

Repository

New-York Historical Society
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
New York, NY 10024