Named after historic St. Paul's Chapel located across the street, the slender tower of the St. Paul Building rose 315 feet above Broadway and Ann Street, filling a small five-sided lot. Architect and engineer George B. Post, designer of the World Building, stacked its twenty-six stories with repeating ionic orders, and terminated the composition of horizontals with a classical cornice rather than a dome or flagstaff. The ornate limestone facade was cantilevered from the floor girders with the main structural members placed within the pier faces protected from heat and moisture. The speculative tower was little loved by critics, one of whom called it "perhaps the least attractive design of all New York's skyscrapers."

Text by Melissa Matlins