Francis Hatch Kimball (1845–1919) was an American architect practicing in New York City, best known for his work on skyscrapers in lower Manhattan and terra-cotta ornamentation. He was an associate with the firm Kimball & Thompson. His work includes the Empire Building, Manhattan Life Insurance Building, and Casino Theatre (Broadway). All but one of Kimball's work was in the United States.
Kimball was born in Kennebunk, Maine. He went on to study architecture in England, and his former Catholic Apostolic Church (New York City) (1897) was praised by influential architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler as "no more scholarly Gothic work in New York."
Kimball was a pioneer in the use of ornamental terra-cotta in the United States, evident on the Corbin Building, on a striking row of townhouses that he designed at 133-143 West 122nd Street in Harlem, and on the Montauk Club in Park Slope, Brooklyn. A 1917 New York Times article describing him as the "father of the skyscraper" notes his bankruptcy.
Kimball died in 1919 in New York City and buried at Linwood Cemetery in Haverhill, Essex County, Massachusetts.
From 1892 to 1898, he was part of Kimball & Thompson which built:
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