Bradford Gilbert

Bradford Lee Gilbert (24 March 1853–1 September 1911) was a nationally-active architect based in New York City.

Gilbert is best known for designing the first steel-framed curtain wall building in New York, the Tower Building, which opened at 50 Broadway in 1889. The Tower Building is considered New York City's first skyscraper. There is some dispute as to whether the Tower Building had eleven or thirteen floors, depending on which floors were counted and which side of the building was considered. It had to have the steel-frame construction because on its narrow lot, masonry-supporting walls would have allowed almost no free space on the first floor. Gilbert's design used the same frame as a railroad bridge, but rotated vertically. The Tower Building was initially greeted with great skepticism, with members of the public predicting it would blow over. This prompted Gilbert to scale the building in the middle of an 1889 hurricane to demonstrate with a plumb line that the building was not vibrating. The building was razed in 1914.

Born in Watertown, New York, Gilbert had been appointed architect of the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad by the age of 23. Among his extensive work for multiple railroads across the country, Gilbert also designed a previous version of New York City's Grand Central Terminal in 1898. Most of his New York buildings have been demolished, but his landmark eleven story Flatiron Building (1898) still stands in Atlanta, Georgia, and predates the similar and more famous New York City Flatiron Building by five years.

Gilbert was also the supervising architect for the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition (1895) and the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition (1901).

Gilbert died at his home in Brooklyn in 1911.

(listed by year built)

Gilbert was also heavily involved in the work of Jerry McAuleythe famous missionary at the Water Street Rescue Mission in New York and continued to support the mission after McAuley's death in 1884 . Mr. Gilbert was first married in 1871 in New York to Cora, daughter of Captain John Rathbone. After his divorce, he married his second wife, Maria (Fahy) McAuley, widow of Jerry McAuley in 1892 in Cranford, New Jersey On February 12, 1896, Bradford and Maria had a daughter named Blossom.

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