9. The Goelet Building, 900 Broadway

White designed mansions for most wealthy prominent New Yorkers of the Gilded Age, including the Goelet family. The Goelets were originally hardware merchants and in the late 1800s brothers Robert and Ogden started building real estate. In 1886 they commissioned the firm of McKim, Mead and White to design the Goelet Building.

The structure is seemingly sleek compared to some of White’s other more ornate designs. Constructed in the Chicago School style, the facade is a mix of different shades of brick and cream colored terra cotta arranged in sawtooth, basket weave, and linear patterns. The structure rises ten stories high. After the death of the Goelet brothers, their heirs sold the building to a developer who made some renovations and continued to use it as a commercial space. By the 1970s the building and the surrounding area had become dilapidated. The structure was purchased by real estate investor Zoltan Justin who, with the help of his son Jeffery, undertook a major restoration project that cleaned the facade, removed roll-down gates that covered the rounded corner storefront, took out cinderblock infill from between the arches and completely redid the lobby.