111 Eighth Avenue, also known as the Google Building and formerly known as Union Inland Terminal #1 and the Port Authority Building, is an Art Deco multi-use building in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Fifteen stories tall and occupying an entire city block, it has of floor space, more than the Empire State Building.
The Port of New York Authority began acquiring the land on the building's site in 1930, against the protests of local residents. It was completed in 1932 and served as an inland terminal for the Hudson River piers and as a warehousing and industrial facility. Occupancy fell to 50percent in the 1970s due to the decline of industrial activity in Manhattan, and the Port Authority itself moved to the World Trade Center in 1973. In the 1990s the building began to attract tenants in the technology and telecommunications sectors. In 2010, the building was purchased for $1.8 billion by Google, who became its largest tenant; Google's presence helped attract other technology companies to Chelsea and contributed to the neighborhood's ongoing gentrification. Aside from Google, the building is also home to a cancer treatment center and a black box theater.
Description
111 Eighth Avenue occupies the full city block between Eighth and Ninth Avenues and 15th and 16th Streets in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The building, completed in 1932, was designed by Lusby Simpson of Abbott, Merkt & Co. The building is 15 stories tall and has of floor space, more than the Empire State Building; the individual floors are nearly in area and have ceilings. It has a rooftop helipad and penthouse floors on either end of the building.
Its exterior is in the Art Deco style and features recurring seagull motifs. The walls are largely made of brick, with granite bases; the first two stories are limestone, and copings and finials are of terracotta. Because of the warehouse mission of the building, it was able to avoid some of the setback rules that greatly reduced the buildable space available for the skyscrapers that mark the Manhattan skyline.
Features
Original use
The building had a multipurpose design when it opened in 1932, with the first floor and basement designated as "Union Inland Terminal #1", which was to be used to transport goods by truck to and from railroad lines and shipping piers on the Hudson River. Cargo was dropped off along 15th Street, sorted inside the building, and picked up from the 16th Street side. The building included four truck elevators, each of which had a capacity and could travel at up to . These elevators measured across, and they lifted trucks into pits measuring deep and across. There were also 12 package elevators and 18 passenger elevators. Freight companies used the elevators to deliver cargo directly to tenants, in contrast to other industrial buildings in New York City, where cargo was dropped off at ground level.
The second floor contained Commerce Hall, designed for exhibitions. The upper floors were intended for manufacturing. Each floor covered . There were 16 loading docks on each floor. On the 15th floor, which contained the Port Authority's offices, engineer Aymar Embury II designed a 325-seat auditorium decorated in green and blue. The New York Herald Tribune said was the "first auditorium designed for commercial purposes in a strictly commercial structure".
Current use
The building's design retains vestiges of its original industrial purpose, including truck-sized freight elevators and floors built to support heavy loads. , two of its original truck elevators were still in use, in addition to nine other large freight elevators and fourteen passenger elevators. The floors of the two lobbies originally each had a large bronze seal of the Port Authority embedded in them; one of these was removed and converted into a coffee table as a retirement gift for Port Authority director Austin J. Tobin. It is also noted for its unobstructed views of the Manhattan skyline. The building has direct access to the 14th Street/Eighth Avenue station of the New York City Subway; when the building opened, a staircase at 15th Street and Eighth Avenue led directly to the subway station in the basement.