10 Facts About Whitehall Building

Whitehall Building is a three-section residential and office building near the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City, adjacent to Battery Park in lower Manhattan.

Whitehall Building is named after the nearby estate of New Amsterdam colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant.

Whitehall Building is located near the southernmost point on Manhattan Island, closer to its western shore.

Whitehall Building stands on filled land along the shore of the North River .

The site of the Whitehall Building was first occupied by small landowners who built houses in the area.

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The Battery Place Realty Company, which would develop what would become the Whitehall Building, was led by Robert Chesebrough, a chemist known for discovering Vaseline, along with his son William A Chesebrough.

At the time, building sites near Broadway, two blocks east of the Whitehall Building, were considered to be optimal for development, especially after the 1907 completion of the U S Custom House at Broadway and Battery Place.

Rents per square foot at the Whitehall Building were generally lower than those on Broadway, and so many tenants started to move into the building.

When originally built, the Whitehall Building was described as having "resembled a big chimney" and that it was the single most prominent structure for vessels docking on the East or North rivers.

One New York Times article later described the Whitehall Building as being "an elegant orange-colored building with ornate gargoyles" next to the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel's ventilation building, an "overgrown tombstone".