The Bayard–Condict Building (formerly the Condict Building and Bayard Building) is a 12-story commercial structure at 65 Bleecker Street in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Built between 1897 and 1899 in the Chicago School style, it was the only building in New York City designed by architect Louis Sullivan, who worked on the project alongside Lyndon P. Smith. Located in the NoHo Historic District, the building was designated a New York City landmark in 1975 and has been a National Historic Landmark since 1976.
The building occupies a rectangular site and has a terracotta facade divided horizontally into three sections. The lower two stories consist of ground-story storefronts with ornate columns, with an arched entrance in the westernmost bay. On the upper stories, piers separate the building vertically into five bays, each with ornate spandrel panels. There are six winged angels just below the cornice at the top of the building. On the inside, the first two stories are used for retail, while the upper floors generally contain large loft-like spaces and a steel structural frame. A mechanical core with elevators, utilities, and stairs is in its western end.
The Bayard Building was developed by the United Loan and Investment Company, who acquired the land in 1897 from the Bank for Savings in the City of New York and named the edifice after the Bayard family. Due to disputes over construction methods, United Loan was forced to give up the building before it was completed, and Emmeline G. H. Condict had acquired it by June 1899. It was sold in 1900, and again in 1920, before coming under the control of the Shulsky family in the 1940s. The storefronts were replaced in the 1960s, followed by the lobby in the 1980s. The facade was restored during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Site
The Bayard–Condict Building is at 65 Bleecker Street in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is on the north side of Bleecker Street between Broadway and Lafayette Street, at the northern end of Crosby Street. The land lot is rectangular and measures around , with a frontage of and a depth of along 30th Street. The Robbins & Appleton Building adjoins the Bayard–Condict Building on the same block directly to the north, and an entrance to the New York City Subway's Bleecker Street station is immediately to the east. Other nearby structures include the Schermerhorn Building to the northeast, 339 Lafayette Street to the east, and 640 Broadway to the southwest.
Before the early 19th century, what is now NoHo was part of the farms of numerous families, such as the Bayard, Bleecker, Herring, Pero, and Randall families. West–east streets were laid through the area by the early 19th century, and row houses were built along these streets. This was followed by institutions like churches, libraries, and schools in the 1830s and 1840s, then by store and loft buildings in the 1850s, which catered to the area's wealthy population. With the advent of curtain walls, steel frames, and fireproof elevators, these store and loft buildings were being built as tall as 12 stories by the 1890s. The Bayard–Condict Building was among these early high-rise loft buildings.
Architecture
The Bayard–Condict Building is the only structure in New York City designed by Louis H. Sullivan, who specialized in the Chicago school style of architecture. Sullivan is sometimes cited as the building's sole architect, although he was assisted by New York architect Lyndon P. Smith. Such partnerships were typical for Sullivan; whenever he designed buildings outside his home state of Illinois, he worked with other architects who were licensed in that state. At the time of the Bayard-Condict Building's construction, Smith worked with John H. Edelmann, who knew Sullivan well. It is unknown how or why Sullivan was selected to design the building, but, at the time of its development in the late 1890s, the city's most prominent structures were generally designed by local firms like McKim, Mead & White. George Elmslie helped design the decoration.
The building was one of the first skeleton frame skyscrapers in New York City, and the Department of Buildings raised numerous objections to the design before the plans were finally accepted. Measuring tall, with 13 stories, it was considered an early skyscraper. It was similar in design to an unbuilt skyscraper for the St. Louis Trust and Savings Bank that was designed in 1895. According to Sullivan's protege Frank Lloyd Wright, the Bayard-Condict Building was Sullivan's favorite design.