Whitehall building

Whitehall Building at #17 Battery Place was built in  1902-1904 by  architect  Henry Hardenburgh, who  also built  the famous    Plaza Hotel at Grand Army Plaza, Manhattan.  
Far long ago in the middle of the seventeen century   Peter Stuyvesant’s mansion was on this place.    Dutch colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant was a major figure in the early history of New York City. The fourth and last Director-General of New Netherland was a former soldier.  He had served as governor of the Dutch Caribbean Island of Curacao, where he lost his right leg. Stuyvesant tried to defend New Netherland from takeover by England.

Peter Stuyvesant 17th century mansion.

When the British took over in 1664 and renamed the colony New York City, they promised Stuyvesant land if he would surrender to the King. He did, and that same year he signed the deed to a house on  a 62-acre tract of land covering today’s East Village and Stuyvesant Town.
Stuyvesant had also built   a stone governor’s mansion near the water.  

White Hall in London as it was in 1749

British  named the building and the street Whitehall, after The Palace of Whitehall (or Palace of White Hall) , the main residence of the English monarchs in London from 1530 until 1698.    

At the end of 17th century the palace was  the largest and most complex in Europe. The palace gives its name, Whitehall, to the road on which many of the current administrative buildings of the UK government are located.  I

A mosaic in subway

n 1698 the palace was burned except the Banqueting House.
Peter Stuyvesant’s mansion was demolished, but the name lives on in the current Whitehall Street (not the same street as the original) and in the building at Battery Place.  
A mosaic representation of Stuyvesant’s house can be seen on the walls of the Whitehall Street subway station serving the R train.

Whitehall Building in New York   is among the oldest structural steel framed buildings of its size.  Building had a great succeeds after several years of using  the annex, also known as Greater Whitehall was built. At the time of its completion, Whitehall with the  annex  was the largest office building in New York City. The  two buildings were designed in neo-Renaissance style with unique nautical themed ornamentation
One office tenant in the mid 20th century was the Moran Towing Company, operator of a fleet of tugboats. In the days before radio dispatching, a man high in the building would watch with a telescope for incoming ships, and then use a six-foot megaphone to shout instructions to the Moran tugboats docked at the Batter. (...)

In 1999, the Whitehall Building was turned into an apartment complex for upscale tenants. In 2000, the building was declared a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee

Because of the harsh environment at its waterfront location at the tip of Manhattan the building suffered severe structural steel decay. Large areas of the primary structural skeleton required replacement and monumental stone and terra cotta ornamentation required removal and replication. This $10m restoration was phased over four years. All of this work was been done while the building was occupied.