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The building is H-shaped, with "light courts" facing north toward Morris Street and south toward the Bowling Green Building.^[8][19] The "light courts" are located above the base. The placement of these courts allowed light to enter the Great Hall, located on the first floor.^[15] According to Morris, the irregular street grid of the neighborhood made it difficult to determine the orientation of the building; he finally decided on its current north–south alignment since, at the time, it would have been possible to see the North River (now the Hudson River) to the south.^[20]

At the time of the Cunard Building's construction, large buildings in New York City were being erected in a "C" or "H" shape to maximize illumination of the interior space.^[19] Additionally, the 1916 Zoning Resolution necessitated the inclusion of setbacks on buildings in New York City that were above a certain height.^[21] The Cunard Building was the first large structure built in the city after the end of World War I, and set an example for compliance to the 1916 law.^[19] Because of the presence of large intersections on either side of the building (Bowling Green to the east and the intersection of Greenwich Street and Trinity Place to the west), the required setback under the 1916 zoning law was minimal.^[19]

Foundation

The New York City Subway's BMT Broadway Line (carrying the R and ​W trains) crosses diagonally underneath the Cunard Building from northwest to southeast. Two additional subway lines, the IRT Lexington Avenue Line (4 and ​5 trains) and the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line (1 train), run adjacent to the western and eastern boundaries of the building, respectively.^[22][23] The Lexington Avenue Line's Bowling Green station is located directly under the building's boundary, while the Broadway Line's Whitehall Street station is located one block south.^[23] Because of the subway tunnels in the area, the Cunard Building's foundation was built around the subway.^[24][25][26]

During construction, the engineers considered and rejected an idea for placing the Cunard Building's girders on the roof of the Broadway Line tunnel, since that would have resulted in vibrations every time a subway train passed by.^[22] Furthermore, the subway tunnel was designed to support the weight of several small buildings and might not have been able to support one large building.^[24][27] Instead, engineers decided to place the building's foundation columns on either side of the subway tunnel, and then erect girders for the building above the tunnel's roof. The foundation columns were placed as close to the subway tunnel as possible, in order to reduce the length of the trusses, which would have had to carry heavy loads. All of the foundation columns were sunk to the depth of the rock underneath.^[22]

A cofferdam was then built on the eastern border of the site, and on part of the northern border. The rock surface underneath the building site was closer to the ground on the western side of the lot, requiring extensive excavation. On the eastern side of the lot, the rock surface sloped below the elevation of the subway tunnel. A 6-foot-thick (1.8 m) wall was built on the southern boundary of the Cunard lot, of which a 2-foot (0.61 m) width was located under the Bowling Green Offices Building. The wall served several purposes: it closed the cofferdam, underpinned the subway, and provided support for the columns on the southern side of the Cunard Building.^[25]

Facade

Interior

At opening, the Cunard Building featured over 700,000 square feet (65,000 m²) of space, of which 500,000 square feet (46,000 m²) was made available for tenants when it opened. A basement in the building contained a safe-deposit vault.^[8] The building's superstructure was fireproof.^[33] According to data collected by The Real Deal magazine, the precise floor area of the Cunard Building is 809,401 square feet (75,195.8 m²).^[34] The first floor contains numerous elaborate works of art.^[35]

The building also contained 36 elevators: 33 for passengers and 3 for freight.^[15][36] Of the passenger elevators, 28 were "high-speed" elevators for general use and the remaining 5 were private cabs.^[33][36][37] The elevators were clustered in the northwestern and eastern parts of the building.^[38] Twenty of the "high-speed" elevators were local and express elevators, accessible from the elevator lobby at the southern end of the Broadway facade. The other eight were located at the building's northwest corner, near Greenwich and Morris Streets.^[7]

Construction

Plans for the Cunard Building were announced in February 1918. At the time, the building was supposed to be 26 stories and cost $10–15 million.^[5][6] One New York Times writer lamented that the plans would involve the destruction of the Stevens House, described as "the last quaint landmark standing as an interesting connecting link between" historic New York City and the "towering structures of commercial industry." of the modern city^[60] Due to World War I, further planning was delayed until June 1919 when Morris was authorized to create "working drawings, specifications and contracts".^[20] The demolition of the Stevens House began in July 1919, at which point the Cunard Building's final plans were publicized, showing that it was to comprise only 21 stories.^[61] Several details were revised in the final plans; for instance, a colonnade on the Broadway facade was replaced with arches.^[28] The New York City Department of Buildings received the blueprints for the Cunard Building in August 1919 and approved the project the next January, allowing construction to begin right afterward.^[19]

Construction was hindered by the presence of subway lines directly underneath the building site, as well as the irregular plot shape and "unknowable" costs.^[20] During construction, the underground BMT Broadway Line was carried on a concrete bed held by quicksand above the bottom of the Cunard Building's excavation site, in order to dampen the noise. The presence of the subways, combined with the fact that the Cunard site had been assembled from numerous separate plots, made construction more difficult.^[24][25] In one construction incident in February 1920, rock blasts from the building's excavation resulted in several subway passengers being injured.^[62]

The designs of the interior artworks were devised off-site and then transferred to a studio within the Cunard Building.^[63] The paintings were then installed within the building in four months; the artists used scaffolds to paint the ceilings while the foundations were still being built beneath them.^[44] The Cunard Building opened in May 1921^[7][9][45] at a total cost of $15 million.^[64] Despite increasing material costs at the end of World War I, the project had been completed on time, within 3% of its original budget.^[30]

Cunard Line use

The building accommodated nearly 9,000 employees.^[65] At the building's opening, Cunard and Anchor Lines occupied the Great Hall, lowest three stories, basement, and top floors.^{[7][8][15][45]} The remaining floors housed numerous other tenants,^[7][15][45] including Atlas Portland Cement Company,^[66] Anaconda Copper,^[67] Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation, Consolidated Steel Corporation, International Motor Truck Company, and Atlantic, Gulf & West Indies Steamship Lines.^[14] A branch of the Mechanics and Metals National Bank was located at the first floor, within the retail space on the northeast corner.^[14][41] Even before the Cunard Building's official opening, it was almost fully leased, with only 24,000 square feet (2,200 m²) remaining unused by April 1921.^[64] This was attributed to relatively low rents, the inclusion of 21-year leases, the timely completion of the project, and a shortage of available office space in the Financial District.^[14] In later years, other industries moved into the Cunard Building as well, such as attorneys, railroad and steamship companies, shipbuilding companies, brokers, engineers, and raw materials companies.^[7] These included the New York Central Railroad, which moved into the building in 1946.^[68]

To pay for the building's mortgage, its owners were given a loan of $8 million in 1930^[69] and another $2.82 million in 1944.^[70][71] In subsequent years, the assessed taxes for the Cunard Building was reduced multiple times. The New York Supreme Court gave the building's owners tax reprieves in 1946,^[72] 1948,^[73] and 1950.^[74] In 1955, the owners completed a $3 million project to add air conditioning to the Cunard Building, one of the largest such retrofits in an existing structure in the city.^[75][76] Ashforth, Todd & Company purchased the building in 1962.^[77] The Cunard Line continued to operate the ticket hall until 1968, when it moved to 555 Fifth Avenue;^[7] the vacant space was then leased by brokerage company Francis I. duPont Co.^[78]

Later tenants

The building was sold again in 1971, this time to the Cementation Company of America, a subsidiary of Trafalgar House Investment Group.^[14][79] Initially, the owners had difficulty finding tenants for the Great Hall due to its vast size.^[80] The United States Postal Service leased the Great Hall in 1974, intending to relocate its post office from the nearby Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House two years later.^[81] By 1977, the USPS had moved into the Great Hall, and Standard & Poor's had signed a 20-year lease for space at the Cunard Building.^[16] The building was sold to Zev W. Wolfson for $15 million by 1979.^[82] The City College of New York's Center For Worker Education was established on the seventh floor of the Cunard Building in 1981.^[83]

In 1995, the exterior and the first floor interior of the Cunard Building, along with several other buildings on Bowling Green,^{[lower-alpha 3]} were formally designated as New York City landmarks.^{[84][1][lower-alpha 4]} In 2007, the building was designated as a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District,^[85] a National Register of Historic Places district.^[3]

S&P vacated its spaces at the Cunard Building, as well as at 26 Broadway directly to the east, in 1997 when the company started leasing space at nearby 55 Water Street.^[86] The post office closed in 2000.^[87] Afterward, the Great Hall went unused again for over a decade. The New York Times cited the hall's landmark status as a factor in the difficulty of leasing the space.^[88] The doors were locked, barring visitors from entering the Great Hall.^[89] During the mid-2000s, the Sports Museum of America considered opening within the Great Hall,^[90] but the museum ultimately opened in 2008 at 26 Broadway.^[91] In 2014, the Great Hall was leased to Cipriani S.A. for the operation of an event venue.^[92]

The upper floors remained in use by multiple tenants, including school and college campuses. In 2002, Deloitte leased three floors of the Cunard Building after its previous offices at the World Trade Center were destroyed in the September 11 attacks.^[93] Léman Manhattan Preparatory School moved to the Cunard Building in 2010,^{[56][94][lower-alpha 5]} occupying the top four floors for its middle and high school campuses.^[96] Relay Graduate School of Education, a private graduate school for teachers, moved into the building in 2019.^[97] WeWork operated an 86,000-square-foot (8,000 m²) coworking space at 25 Broadway from 2013 to 2021,^[98][99] after which Industrious and Wolfson Group leased 44,000 square feet (4,100 m²) for use as a coworking space in 2022.^[100][101]