- Wheatsworth Factory. Image:LPC.
Wheatsworth Factory and Public National Bank of NY designated for unique 1920s architecture. On September 16, 2008, Landmarks voted unanimously to designate the Wheatsworth Factory and the Public National Bank of New York Building as individual City landmarks. Built in the 1920s, both represent strains of 20th century European architecture rarely found in New York.
The Wheatsworth factory, at 444 East 10th Street, was built in 1927-28 by J. Edwin Hopkins as an industrial bakery for Wheatsworth Inc., creators of the Milk-Bone dog biscuit and Wheatsworth Cracker. The factory was modeled in a Viennese Secessionist Art Deco style, and features extensive multi-chrome terracotta ornamentation. One of the few industrial buildings remaining in the East Village, the factory is now used as storage space by Nabisco, which acquired Wheatsworth in 1931. At the hearing, Commissioner Christopher Moore stated that the Wheatsworth had an unusually elegant look for a factory,” while Commissioner Joan Gerner called it a “salute to the industrial age.”
Eugene Schoen, architect of the Public National Bank of New York Building at 106 Avenue C, was heavily influenced by early modernist Austrian architects Josef Hoffman and Otto Wagner. The two-story building is notable for its fluted pilasters without capitals, terra-cotta ornament, and molded cornice. Commissioner Stephen Byrns admired the building for its “abstracted classicism,” while Commissioner Fred Bland praised the building for “breaking all the rules, brilliantly.”
Both buildings were identified by Landmarks during the Commission’s 2006 survey of the East Village.
LPC: Wheatsworth Factory, 444 East 10th St., Manhattan (LP-2262); Public National Bank of New York, 106 Avenue C, Manhattan (LP-2263) (Sept. 16, 2008).