41 Cooper Square | Block : 462 | Lot #1

Designed by James Bogardus and Colonel Marshall Lefferts, the new building was the city’s first purpose-built regimental armory, although the three-story, cast-iron-fronted Italianate palazzo housed the butchers on the ground floor. The building provided two large drill halls and eleven company meeting or squad drill rooms. On the third floor was a single, undivided, 100-by-181-foot column-free regimental drill room that rose to 30 feet at its center, making it, according to The New York Times, “the handsomest and largest drill-room in the United States.”

Unfortunately, while the building was beautiful, it was not very well engineered, and soon after its opening it was discovered that the cast-iron structure was not capable of handling the physical effects of hundreds of men marching in time.

 

Block : 462 / Lot : 001 / Building Date : 2009 / Original Owner : The Cooper Union/ Original Use : Institutional / Original Architect : Thom Mayne