THE BRADLEY MARTIN BALL A Wealth of Heirlooms, in Antique Jewels and Rare Old Laces, to be Shown.

THE BRADLEY MARTIN BALL

A Wealth of Heirlooms, in Antique Jewels and Rare Old Laces, to be Shown.

PRICELESS FAMILY TREASURES.

Dealers' Stocks and Household Stores Ransacked and Exhausted to Supply the Demand for Ornaments and Historical Accuracy. The New York Times - February 9, 1897

There is no estimating the value of the rare old jewels to be worn at the Bradley Martin ball.   All the jewelers who deal in antiques say they have been cleaned out of all they had on hand, and people still keep calling for old buckles, snuff boxes, lorgnettes, diamond or pearl studded girdles, rings, and, in fact, every conceivable decoration in gems.

LAST MINUTE INVITATION.....

Your charm has secured a last minute invitation to the Bradley Martin ball. Your costume would be..... 

You'll need to brush up on your Quadrille talents - someone from Mrs. Astor's group has canceled.....

BOSTON GUESTS AT THE BALL. Costumes Which Some of the Principals Will Wear.

BOSTON    GUESTS   AT   THE   BALL.
Costumes Which  Some of the Principals Will Wear. The New York Times - February 8, 1897

BOSTON, Mass., Feb. 8.~-Many rich Bostonians will attend the Bradley Martin ball in hired costumes. Invitations have been most plentifully showered on modern Athenians. Dozens of them are floating around on the upper crust of society, and not a few have found their way to people who are not especially well known from a social or any other point of view. They are mostly people with New York connections, who have a "pull", or men at Harvard, who, through an acquaintance with young Bradley Martin or some fortuitous circumstance of college life, have been honored with a card.

THE BRADLEY MARTIN BALL Preparations Nearly Completed for an Entertainment in Society Which Promises to be Historic.

THE BRADLEY MARTIN BALL
Preparations Nearly Completed for an
Entertainment in Society Which
Promises to be Historic. The New York Times - February 7, 1897

DECORATIONS AND COSTUMES.

Costume balls are not a novelty in New York, but in the prominence of the guests, the lavishness of its appointments, the broad scale of its plan, the beauty and brilliancy of the dresses to be worn, and the public as well as social interest and excitement it arouses, the costume ball to be given by Mrs. Bradley Martin at the Waldorf Hotel next Wednesday night will, it is expected, not only far surpass any previous event of the kind in America, but will even rival, if it does not excel, the famous fancy dress ball given at Warwick Castle, in England, in the Winter of 1895.

Society Events of the Week

Society Events of the Week The New York Times - February 7, 1897

Next Wednesday***Sunday February 10, 1897 - 116 years ago*** will see the Martin ball in the past, and the chronicler of the society-doings of the metropolis will then be enabled for the first time since this ball was announced to take place, to obtain what artists would call a correct perspective of the season's doings, and to devote some little time and space to other social events and incidents which are now so completely overshadowed by the coming entertainment as to afford little interest to even their participants. 

QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE. A Story Current in Social Circles Regarding the Bradley Martin Ball.

QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE.
A Story Current in Social Circles Regarding the  Bradley Martin Ball. The New York Times - February 5, 1897

  The old and dangerous question of precedence at a social entertainment has, if the gossip in city clubs and drawing-rooms can be relied on, nearly led to the withdrawal from participation in the coming Bradley Martin ball of' Mrs. Ogden Mills, the leader of that most exclusive set in New York society which Ward McAllister dubbed "the 150." The story runs to the effect that Mrs. Mills called upon Mrs. Bradley Martin soon after the latter had issued invitations to her ball, and informed her that she had arranged to organize one of the opening quadrilles which are to be such a feature of the ball, and that she expected it to be danced the first. Mrs. Martin is said to have replied that, she had promised the first quadrille to Mrs. Frederic Bronson. It is further related that at this point Mrs. Mills declared that she should not be able to attend the ball.

TALKED ON THE COMING BALL

TALKED ON THE COMING BALL.
Mr.   Gunton   Thinks   the  Rich   Should
Spend Their Money Here. The New York Times - February 4 , 1897

  "The Bradley-Martin ball" was the subject of President George Gunton's lecture last evening at the School of Social Economics, 34 Union Square.

  "The Bradley-Martin ball," said Mr. Gunton, " is about as prominent a topic of discussion these days as the making: of McKinley's Cabinet. The difference, however, is that we can not have much to say about the Cabinet, while we can have lots to say about the ball.

Bush Terminal Sales Building - New York City

BUSH TERMINAL SALES BUILDING - WEST 42d ST., NEW YORK. Helmle & Corbett, Architects.

 AN observing foreigner, accustomed to the beauty of  European cities, when asked for his impressions of our American product, replied: "Your cities? Oh! they are just streets without ends, buildings without roofs, side walls without decorations, front walls with too much, and tanks, pent-houses, and signs." Was he right ? Look up or down one of our principal avenues and answer for yourself. We do not end our streets, we simply let them peter out; we do not roof our buildings, we simply let their topmost "inards" remain forever exposed. We leave the side walls, the most conspicuous part of our buildings, to bask in adorned ugliness, while we slather our fronts with every conceivable style (and some inconceivable ones), ranging all the way from the late Adam period back to the Adam and Eve period. If the architects don't know where to put their decorations to have them count, the advertisers surely know where to put their signs to have them read they use the undecorated side walls for the very simple and common sense reason that in any view up or down our streets side walls are all one sees. 

  Some future parking commission, some city beautiful committee, may give us endings for our streets and give us an ending of the sign nuisance, too; but in the meantime a very long and a very mean time, probably any conspicuous effort to treat all sides of a building with equal interest and provide a real visible roof in the bargain should deserve particular mention. 

  In the recently completed Bush Terminal Sales Building, in West 42d Street, Manhattan has acquired one of these rare architectural landmarks whose beauty is not likely soon to suffer eclipse. The new zoning law rang the death-knell of the sky-scraper, and there will be no more of these castles in the air, no more at least in the greater city, and if not here, then where else, pray, would any venturesome spirit aspire to produce them ? 

  When Mr. Irving T. Bush, president of the Bush Terminal Company, who, a quarter of a century ago, conceived the idea that later crystallized in the big terminal development now a model of its kind the world over, decided to extend his field of operations in Manhattan and erect a permanent exhibition building where manufacturers everywhere could show their goods in a distinctive and individual manner, he secured the services of Messrs. Helmle and Corbett, of Brooklyn, to design the building. The superb structure, generally conceded to be one of the finest in New York, shows how successfully they fulfilled their task. 

  Few modern sky buildings of, the sky-scraper class presented so many unusual problems in engineering, construction, and architectural treatment. Towering four hundred and fifty feet in the air, the tower portion covers but fifty by ninety feet of ground space, the smallest area of any building in the world for its height except the Washington Monument. To secure a substantial base for this mighty frame it was necessary to go down fifty feet below the street level before proper foundation was reached. Although the present building extends through the block to 41st Street with a nine-story extension over the rear portion, the building operation started on the front lot only and all the material for the entire tower was brought to the building through 42d Street, one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city, where traffic is never suspended night or day. It would seem as if the work of construction would have been hampered to an almost unbelievable extent under the restricted means of access, and yet, by having the steel for the structure fabricated, the stonework, brick, and terra-cotta in the yards ready for delivery before the foundation was finished, there was no delay whatever caused by lack of material nor any blocking of traffic either on street or sidewalk. 

  The unusual engineering feature of the work was to provide proper resistance to the overturning movement of the wind. This great strain naturally came across the fifty-foot width of the building, and there being no interior partitions in which to conceal diagonal struts, heavy reinforcements with strong knee-braces at the column points had to 
be introduced. Also the necessity in the plan for a wider space at one point on the three lower floors than was possible to get between the regular column spaces was another 
problem that came up for solution. Two columns, carrying a total of one thousand three hundred tons, resting on a pair of cross-girders seventy-two inches deep with a seventy-five-foot clear span, were added on the fourth level to meet this contingency. 

  Since any building ten times higher than it is wide is actually a tower, some special treatment of the upper portion was obligatory to give it the appropriate finish, and the tanks, chimneys, and pent-houses which disfigure the tops of most of our buildings had to be concealed within fittingly proportioned walls. In deciding upon a style of architecture for the building, the choice lay between one that would exaggerate the height or one that would diminish it. Distinction in building, like distinction in dress, comes from accentuating the natural peculiarities rather than in concealing or belittling them, so the  Gothic was selected as the inspiration for the architectural treatment, although it is handled with a remarkably modern touch. 

  Built in the centre of a block, the side walls are blank as to windows, and no space could be sacrificed here for reveals, nor could any encroachments on neighboring property for projections be permitted. Yet these side walls were as conspicuous a part of the building as the front, if not more so, and some form of architectural embellishment that would bring them into harmony with the front, to dress them up, so to speak, and make them, with the front, an architectural unit, was demanded. 

  Since cornices or projections of any sort were not permissible on the sides, a scheme of design was chosen which required no projections on front, rear, or sides. Reveals, too, were impractical on the sides, so some device had to be discovered by which reveals could be simulated without sacrificing space or incurring undue expense. By the judicious use of a little "architectural camouflage," the colors being supplied by three tones of brick, the desired effect was obtained, and an entirely new and original treatment of side walls, so painfully neglected in most of our buildings, was evolved. Black brick was used for the shadows and white for the high lights, the result being quite as effective as though the accustomed architectural embellishments had been used, the light and shadow effect being worked out to correspond with the natural average angle of the sun.

 The individuality and distinctive character of the building does not stop on the outside. The interior is quite as unique and original, and here again the plan, as well as the decoration, follows absolutely unconventional lines. Every floor above the third is an open exhibition space, divided by low rails, glass partitions, or booths, where the buyer can find every manufactured article under the sun on display and make his selection accordingly. The ground and second floor are for an International Buyers' Club, furnished and fitted like an old English manor-house, with a delightful background of panelled walls, beamed ceilings, and Jacobean furniture. A grand main entrance rising two full stories in height, with a richly carved ecclesiastical setting, is the coup de grace of the building, establishing at once in the mind of the visitor the correlation between its Gothic exterior and the fifteenth-century environment of the club-rooms. 

  Perhaps the most  striking feature of the interior, both in the floors of the club and the merchants' exhibition floors as well, is the quiet harmony in color and the pleasing variety in the use of materials. In fact, the same distinctive note of complete unity which is so remarkably conspicuous in the entire exterior treatment has been carried into the interior with unusual skill and success. 

BingStreetSide.

The evacuation 

Under construction 

Prescriptive 

Longitudinal section 

FRONT AND REAR ELEVATION

FRONT ELEVATION

BASEMENT PLAN

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

SECOND FLOOR PLAN

THIRD FLOOR PLAN

TYPICAL FLOOR PLAN - FOURTH THROUGH EIGHTH FLOORS

NINTH FLOOR PLAN

TENTH FLOOR PLAN

PLAN OF TWENTIETH AND TWENTY-FIRST FLOORS

PLAN OF TWENTY-SECOND THROUGH TWENTY-FIFTH FLOORS

PLAN OF TWENTY-SIXTH FLOOR

PLAN OF TWENTY-EIGHTH FLOOR

42nd street entrance

Staircase gallery, second floor

Detail, third floor

Smoking room

DETAIL IN ENTRANCE LOBBY, BUSH TERMINAL SALES BUILDING, WEST 42nd ST., NEW YORK.     Helmle & Corbett, Architects.

ENTRANCE LOBBY, BUSH TERMINAL SALES BUILDING, WEST 42d ST., NEW YORK. Helmlc & Corbett, Architects.

MAIN RECEPTION-ROOM

BUSINESS LIBRARY 

STAIRCASE CONNECTING FIRST AND SECOND FLOORS

INTERNATIONAL BUYERS' CLUB, SECOND FLOOR

MERCHANTS' CLUB

MERCHANTS' CLUB

FIREPLACE, MERCHANTS' CLUB

BUSH TERMINAL SALES BUILDING

BUSH TERMINAL SALES BUILDING

BUSH TERMINAL SALES BUILDING

THE BUSH TERMINAL SALES BUILDING AT NIGHT

   Irving T. Bush must have liked the Old English look - 

THE  OFFICE   BUILDING  OF THE  BUSH  TERMINAL CO.  100 Broad Street, New York - Kirby, Petit & Green, Architects - 1906

A JACOBEAN OFFICE BUILDING
Architectural Record - 1906

It is amusing to contrast a design such as that of the new building of the Bank of California with the design of the offices which have recently been erected for the Bush Terminal Company on Broad Street, New York, by Messrs. Kirby, Petit & Green. The problems of design presented by these two buildings were, of course, very different, except that the two sites both had frontages on three streets, and both were to be comparatively low buildings; but the difference in the two problems does not entirely account for the difference in the two results. Whatever doubts one may have as to the architectural propriety of introducing colossal colonnades on the narrow streets of a city, there can be no doubt at all as to the impropriety of turning an office building in a busy thoroughfare into a Jacobean manor-house. A house of this character, no matter how good it may be in itself, must necessarily look affected and out of place in the midst of a lot of office buildings; and when the offices of the Bush Terminal Company are surrounded, as they eventually will be by skyscrapers, the impropriety will become still more conspicuous. In such an environment the conscious affectation of its appearance will make the building almost trivial in effect. Its comparative insignificance in size instead of being discreetly passed over, will be emphasized. Jacobean garden fronts are all very well in their proper setting of lawn, trees, shrubbery and vines, but on Broad Street, New York City, their social situation is analogous to that of a little over-dressed English lord in a gathering of rough American cow-punchers.

BingStreetSide - The building no longer stands.

DECORATIONS FOR THE BALL

The "Old" Waldorf Astoria

DECORATIONS FOR THE BALL
Gorgeous Effects to be Created by
Small for Mrs. Bradley Martin,
RARE TAPESTRY AND FLOWERS.
They  Will  Be  Used  in Profusion—
Small Ballroom Will Have No
Set Piece—Canopies in
Large Ballroom. The New York Times - February 3, 1897

  Decorations for the Bradley Martin ball at the Waldorf will be under the charge of Florist Small(?). The entire scheme has been devised to meet the ideas of the hostess, and the floral dream, when realized, will be rich in profusion and exquisite in taste. Guests will enter through the private apartments of the Waldorf manager, Mr, Boldt, to the first floor of the hotel proper, passing through five of Mr. Boldt's rooms, where there will be no attempt whatever at decoration. Thence they will proceed to the corridors on the second floor, where fifteen rooms, including the Astor dining room, will be used for dressing apartments. 

Bradley Martin Ball - "Luxuriant Days of Rome and Greece"

                                                HARM DONE BY ALARMISTS 

                             THE RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF RICH AND POOR.

Rabbi Gottheil at Temple Emanu-El Argues Against Socialistic Ideas and Declares the Laborer Profits by the Extravagance of  the Wealthy.



                                                DR. PETERS  PROPHESIES RUIN.

He Likens the Present Era to the Luxuriant Days of Rome and Greece.

Click HERE to read the opinions first published in The New York Times - February 1, 1897 - one hundred sixteen years ago today. HERE to read the society news for January 31, 1897.