User:Batteryplace/master

Downtown Athletic Club
Lower Manhattan, looking north from The Battery. Downtown Athletic Club is the tall reddish-brown building toward the left. Trees in foreground are in Battery Park.
General information
Status	Completed
Type	Originally a private club; now residences
Location	20 West Street New York City, New York, United States
Construction started	1929
Completed	1930
Owner	The Moinian Group
Height
Roof	518 ft (158 m)
Technical details
Floor count	Originally 35, now 45
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Starrett & Van Vleck

The Downtown Athletic Club was the original name of a 35-story skyscraper located at 19 West Street in Lower Manhattan. The building, now The Downtown Club and renovated to include 45 stories, is significant as an example of Art Deco design; as the original home of the Heisman Trophy; as a designated New York City Landmark; as an exemplar of adaptive reuse; and as an influence on the architectural profession at schools of architecture in the U.S. and other countries.

History

The Downtown Athletic Club was first a club and later a building as well. Founded in 1926 by a group of businessmen in Lower Manhattan, the club first installed itself in the Singer Building, on Broadway at Liberty Street, three blocks north of Wall Street. According to Christopher Gray, the buildings and landmarks columnist for The New York Times, “From later reports it is clear that these men, headed by Schuyler Van Vechten Hoffman, a financier, had an entirely separate building in mind from the start.”