Long Island Historical Society building competition architectural drawings

George Browne Post was born in 1837 in New York City. He attended New York University, where he studied civil engineering. He then entered the office of Richard Morris Hunt in Manhattan. Hunt was America's first architect to be trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and he imparted the Beaux-Arts system to his students and employees, which was at that time all about finding answers in the traditional architecture of the Western world to the daunting problems of designing the entirely new building types of the 19th century — tall office buildings, public libraries and art museums, railroad stations, large hotels, and more. One of the architects beside whom Post worked in Hunt's atelier was the Philadelphian Frank Furness.

In 1861, Post formed a partnership with another Hunt protégé, Charles Dexter Gambrill. But the partnership was short-lived, as the Civil War began and Post enlisted. He became a captain and served as an aide to General Ambrose Burnside at the time of the defeat at Fredericksburg in 1862. By war's end, Post was a colonel. Unlike most Union Army officers, he chose never to be addressed by his title. After the war, he resumed the practice of architecture, though on his own, as Gambrill had formed a partnership with another young architect, Henry Hobson Richardson. Between 1868 and 1870, Post contributed his engineering expertise to the design of the Equitable Life Assurance Society Building at 120 Broadway, working with the architects Edward H. Kendall and Arthur D. Gilman on what is today widely regarded as the first prototypical skyscraper.

In 1870, Post won one of his most important early commissions when he was hired to design the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, the headquarters of one of Brooklyn's largest banks, on Broadway and Driggs Avenue in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Opened in 1875, the domed building still stands today. It was one of the nation's earliest harbingers of the classical grandeur that would be ushered in by the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 — a building that was ahead of its time. The interior of the bank was decorated by the Chicago architect Peter B. Wight, and remains one of the most significant extant examples of his work.

In the decade following the Civil War, Post received many commissions for the tall office buildings that had begun to dominate the skyline of lower Manhattan. Among these were the Western Union Building (no longer standing) of 1872-75; the Union Trust Building (no longer standing) of 1889-90; the World Building (no longer standing) that, when it was built in 1889-90, was the tallest building in the world; the New York Times Building (still standing) of 1888-89; the Havemeyer Building (no longer standing) of 1891-93; and the St. Paul Building (no longer standing) of 1895-98. Early on, Post pioneered the "arcaded" skyscraper, the earliest attempt by architects to assert control over the fenestration and surface patterns of tall office buildings. In this, Post both influenced and was influenced by Henry Hobson Richardson, who employed the "arcaded" method in his great Marshall Field Wholesale Store in Chicago of 1887. Post later adapted the breakthroughs of Chicago's Louis Sullivan — tripartite articulation, letting the steel structure of the building determine its basic form, using lush ornamentation to outline the structural forms. He never abandoned his foundational classicism, incorporating columns and figure sculpture in many of his skyscrapers.

Impressive as was Post's contribution to the evolution of the skyscraper (a role duly noted and analyzed in detail by Carl W. Condit and Sarah Bradford Landau in Rise of the New York Skyscraper, 1865-1913), he is best remembered for seven works: the Produce Exchange at 2 Broadway (1881-1884), the mansion of Cornelius Vanderbilt II on Fifth Avenue (1879-1882), the Manufacturers and Liberal Arts building at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition (1893), the New York Stock Exchange (1901-03), the campus of City College on Hamilton Heights (1900-1910), the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin (1906-1917), and of course, the Long Island Historical Society building.

In his design of the Society's building — which included an auditorium, a library, a gallery, and offices — Post innovated dramatically. On the exterior, he was among the first American architects to experiment with ornamental terra-cotta. Of particular note are the terra-cotta busts — of Columbus, Benjamin Franklin, Shakespeare, Gutenberg, Beethoven, and Michelangelo — modeled by the great sculptor Olin Levi Warner, known for his work at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Between 1999 and 2003 the Society's façade underwent a painstaking restoration.

In the building's second-floor library, Post engineered a double-height, galleried space. The cast-iron columns in the first-floor auditorium support the library floor, while iron trusses in the attic support the library ceiling, the attic floor, and the roof. This kind of structuring called upon all of Post's engineering skill and was quite novel in its time.

Post died in 1913, and his sons carried on his firm under the name George B. Post & Sons.

- based on research by Francis Morrone

In December 1877, the Long Island Historical Society announced a competition to design the historical society's headquarters, which was to be built at 128 Pierrepont Street (at the corner of Clinton Street) in Brooklyn, New York. The contest was won by George Browne Post in February 1878.

The society's four-story Queen Anne-style building was completed in 1881. The building features terra cotta ornamentation on the façade and an innovative truss system to support the ceiling of the central library. Architectural historians have praised Post's design for blending technological innovation and graceful aesthetics.

The building's masonry consists of unglazed terra cotta and repressed brick. It was the first building in New York City to use locally produced terra cotta. The facade is adorned with busts of Christopher Columbus, Benjamin Franklin, William Shakespeare, Johannes Gutenberg, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Michaelangelo Buonarroti sculpted by Olin Levi Warner. Their depictions are interspersed with representations of American flora by Truman H. Bartlett.

Post employed artists and craftsmen of the Aesthetic Movement to embellish the interior spaces. Stained glass in-window lunettes and a central laylight are believed to have originated from the studio of noted artist Charles Booth. Decorations throughout the building include Minton tile floors, custom-made bronze hardware (designed by Post), and elaborately carved black ash woodwork in the library.

Inspired by the design of the Brooklyn Bridge, Post suspended the top floor of the building from iron trusses in the roof, creating an open and elegant reading room. Additional iron columns enclosed in carved wood support the galleries in the library.

In July 1991, the building was recognized as a National Historic Landmark and included on the National Register of Historic Places. Portions of the interior, including the library, were made interior landmarks by the City of New York – a rare designation in Brooklyn.

- Julie Golia, Director of Public History, Brooklyn Historical Society, 2014

128 Pierrepont Street is on the southwest corner of Pierrepont and Clinton Streets in Brooklyn Heights. When it was built, Brooklyn was still an independent city, and Brooklynites prided themselves on the cultural nucleus taking shape near Montague and Clinton Streets. Here could be found Peter B. Wight's Mercantile Library and Leopold Eidlitz's Brooklyn Academy of Music, among other buildings. Founded in 1863, the Society had outgrown its quarters in the Hamilton Literary Association Building on Court Street (lectures had to be held off-site, often at the Brooklyn Academy of Music) and set its sites on a new, purpose-built structure that would proudly take its place in Brooklyn's prestigious cultural district.

In 1878, to get the best building possible, the Society held a competition. This competition is one of the most significant architectural competitions in American history. The entrants ranged from the 29-year-old Hugh Lamb, who would go on to become the most prolific college campus designer in the country, to the 75-year-old Alexander Jackson Davis, one of the greatest of American antebellum architects.

- based on research by Francis Morrone