page_title: Corbin Building
section_title: Facade
hierarchical_section_title: Corbin Building / Design / Facade
caption_attribution_description: The Corbin Building is a historic former office building located at 13 John Street at the corner of Broadway – where it is numbered as 192 – in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1888-89 and was designed by Francis H. Kimball in the Romanesque Revival style. The building was named for Austin Corbin, a president of the Long Island Rail Road. It is currently being rehabilitated by the MTA as part of the Fulton Center project. The ground and basement levels of the building will be incorporated into the Transit Center and serve as an entrance to the subway station below. The exterior and interior of the building will be restored to resemble its original 19th century construction as closely as possible.
context_page_description: The Corbin Building is a historic office building at the northeast corner of John Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. It was built in 1888–1889 as a speculative development and was designed by Francis H. Kimball in the Romanesque Revival style with French Gothic detailing. The building was named for Austin Corbin, a president of the Long Island Rail Road who also founded several banks.
  The Corbin Building has a polychrome exterior of brick, brownstone and terracotta featuring rounded arches with terracotta detailing, while its interior vaulted ceilings employ a Guastavino tile system. Structurally, it preceded the use of steel skeletons for skyscrapers, utilizing cast-iron beams and masonry walls that were load-bearing. The Corbin Building sits on a narrow trapezoidal lot with 160 feet of frontage on John Street and 20 feet on Broadway. The Corbin Building was significantly taller than others around at the time it was built.
  The Corbin Building was erected as a speculative venture for use as office space or housing.
context_section_description: The building has facades on Broadway and John Street, with one bay on Broadway and eight on John Street. The facades are horizontally divided into the ground story, two midsections of three stories each, and an attic. The lowest three stories on both sides are made of Long Meadow brownstone, while the upper stories are clad with light brick surrounded by red-brown terracotta trim. On both of the visible facades, there are belt courses above the first four stories, as well as above the seventh story. A terracotta cornice resembling an arcade runs above the eighth story, while a smaller terracotta cornice runs above the ninth story. The decorations of the Corbin Building resemble those used on other nearby structures like the Potter Building and Temple Court Building.
  An identical fenestration pattern is used on the Broadway facade and on either of the outermost bays on John Street, collectively known as the end bays. These bays form the facades of the "end pavilions", the only parts of the building that are nine stories high. The ground floor of the Broadway facade and the westernmost bay on John Street has stone arches supported by stone piers, while in the easternmost bay on John Street, the ground floor has a service entrance. The cornice above the first story of the end bays is supported by brackets and doubles as the second-story window sill. The second to fourth floors of the end bays are located within triple-story round arches. The fifth and sixth floors of the end bays consist of a pair of double arches with ornate terracotta surrounds and spandrels. The fifth story has four sash windows on each bay, while the sixth story has four sash windows under a transom bar with two arched windows. The seventh story of each end bay is composed of two pairs of single-height arched windows in each bay, with terracotta surrounds. On each end bay, the eighth story has three segmental arch windows with four terracotta pilasters, while the ninth story has five narrow round arches, two of which are filled with brick.
  The six center bays on John Street also use an identical fenestration pattern to each other. At ground level, the main entrance to the building is on the second bay from the east, and is recessed within a decorative round arch. The interior of the arch contains ornate details, while the exterior is supported by heavy stone piers and is topped by a keystone, a Gothic molding, and a small blind arcade of four pairs of arches. The other bays contain a steel-and-glass enclosure with doors leading inside to a set of escalators, which in turn connect to the Fulton Center. On the second through fourth floors, the six center bays contain 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, and 2 windows per floor from west to east. The second- and third-story windows are rectangular, with sills projecting from the third-story windows, while the fourth-story windows are arched with terracotta surrounds. The fifth through seventh stories of the center bays contain triple-story round arches. On the eighth story, each of the center bays has three segmental arch windows with terracotta pilasters, similar to in the end bays.
  The windows in the triple-height arches (the second through fourth floors on the end bays, and the fifth through seventh floors on the center bays) have cast-iron surrounds with Gothic foliate decorative elements. Each floor of the triple arches is separated by decorative spandrels. The lower two stories of each triple arches contain a grid of three panes by three panes on each floor. Decorative vertical mullions separate the panes in each bay, which are angled slightly outward, while the horizontal transoms are not decorated. The uppermost story of each triple arch has five window panes: two below the sides of the triple-height arch and three underneath the center with horizontal transoms.
caption: Triple-height arched windows
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