Woolworth Building Pool
The hidden pool inside the Woolworth Building that once belonged to the building's owner and developer Frank W. Woolworth, was recently restored and unveiled this week! The pool has always been a mystery to skyscraper enthusiasts, sitting drained and abandoned for the last two decades.
The 'Cathedral of Commerce" as the Woolworth was known, was built in 1913 – at the time the tallest building in the world – for American retail giant, the F. W. Woolworth Company. When designing the tower, Woolworth and his architect Cass Gilbert planned to include a swimming pool and Turkish bath in the basement, lined with marble. Some accounts say the amenities were actually included to attract tenants to the building at a time when there was a surplus of commercial office space in Lower Manhattan, not for Woolworth's personal use. A prospectus on the building from 1913 lists the pool and bath along with the building's other features.
The 15-by-55-foot pool was drained in 1999, only to be recently restored by Alchemy Properties, who has converted the top thirty stories of the tower for thirty-three luxury residences. This week we got to visit the pool, which had just received its permits to operate.
Great view of newspaper Row, the Woolworth Building and the Lower Manhattan skyline in 1913.
The skyscraper opened on the night of April 24, 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson pressed a button in the White House, lighting up 80 thousand incandescent bulbs in the Woolworth Building including twenty 1,000-watt lamps on the tower's crown. Built by five-and-dime store king Frank W. Woolworth, it was designed by architect Cass Gilbert and would become the tallest building in the world. Dubbed the "Cathedral of Commerce" after its neo-gothic ornament and iconic silhouette, the facade was clad in glazed terra-cotta, molded into gothic crockets, pinnacles, and gargoyles. The
The tip of the Woolworth Building popping out above the clouds, 1928.
Incredibly detailed drawing of the top of the Woolworth Building by artist Michael Young.