Office Buildings

Early Office Buildings

Harper & Brothers Building, New York, NY, engraving published 1855. The front of this five-story building was iron. Half thesecond floor was a large office. The rest of the building and an adjoining one were used for producing and warehousing books. Source: Jacob Abbot, The Harper Establishment, or, How the Story Books are Made, Harper & Brothers, New York, NY, 1855.Courtesy of Pat Pflieger, Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read.

Except in lower Manhattan in New York City, until 1885 few U.S. office buildings exceeded five stories. In lower Manhattan, after 1865 some office buildings without elevators were taller than five stories, but apparently the top floors generally were not used for offices. In addition, some hotels were taller than five stories. Construction of seven to ten story office buildings with elevators began around 1870.

Plan for War Office, England, 1857

Public Ledger Newspaper Building, Philadelphia, PA, built 1867-68

Left: Banking House of John A Hambleton & Co., Baltimore, MD, 1874 image Right: Ninth National Bank of the City of New York, 1874 image

Buffalo German Insurance Co. Building, Buffalo, NY, built 1879

By contrast, in New York City a 30 story office building was completed in 1899, a 47 story office building was completed in 1908, and a 60 story office building was completed in 1913.

Except to the extent they are constrained by zoning or building codes, owners of new office buildings chose building heights that produced the greatest profits. The incentive to build taller buildings is that they use less land per square foot of office space. One disincentive to building taller buildings is that the cost of construction per floor increases with the height of the building because the entire building structure, including foundations and vertical supports, must be stronger. Another disincentive to building higher buildings relates to the cost of moving people up and down. Prior to the development of practical passenger elevators, the market value of office space declined with distance from the street because people had to walk up and down. After the development of passenger elevators, the cost of providing elevators increased faster than the height of a building, because more and more of the otherwise usable internal space on lower floors had to be turned over to elevator shafts needed to reach higher floors.

With that background, one can see why office buildings generally did not exceed five stories until the late 19th century. First, central city land prices were comparatively low, so there was comparatively little incentive to bear additional construction costs in order to economize on land. Second, the cost of constructing higher floors was high, for either of two reasons. If one relied on stone or brick walls for structural support, the walls in the lower part of the building had to be made thicker, which increased construction costs and reduced usable internal space. One could avoid that by using iron or steel, but these metals were expensive. Third, prior to the development of practical passenger elevators, no one would pay much for offices located above the fifth floor of a building. Thus, the incremental cost of adding a sixth or higher floor was greater than the incremental rental revenue one could earn from the extra space.

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Office Buildings