An Early New York City Skyscraper Remembered

The Mail & Express Building, built in 1892 at Broadway and Fulton Street in Manhattan. CreditIrving Underhill/Museum of the City of New York

In the history of the skyscraper, the Mail & Express Building, built in 1892 at Broadway and Fulton Street, gets short shrift. It was not the tallest or the biggest or the first, but it was certainly the lightest, the most refined — which didn’t save it when demolition came in 1920.

In 1888, when Cyrus Field sold the Mail and Express to Elliott F. Shepard, the newspaper was losing money, a failing amalgam of other papers. But Shepard didn’t care; he had other things in mind. In the same year, Shepard, a Presbyterian, bought control of the Fifth Avenue stage line to stop it from running on Sunday and violating the Sabbath.....Continue Reading

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