Singer Building - Tourist Attractions in New York City

The Singer Building at Liberty Street and Broadway in Manhattan, New York was an office building completed in 1908 as the headquarters of the Singer Manufacturing Company.
The building's architect, Ernest Flagg, was a supporter of height limitations and restrictive zoning, and showed his solution to tall building crowding with the Singer's set-back design. The 12-story base of the building filled an entire blockfront, while the tower above was very narrow.
At 612 ft (187 m) above grade, the Singer Building was the tallest building in the world from its completion until the completion in 1909 of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. It was the first modern building (excluding the Eiffel Tower, which is a tower, not a building) to hold the record for world's tallest and also was the first secular building to hold this honor: all previous holders of the position of world's tallest were religious structures, whether European cathedrals or, for the previous 3,800 years, the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The building was demolished in 1968 as it was functionally obsolete and to make way for the U.S. Steel Building (now known as One Liberty Plaza). The tower floors were squares only 65 ft (20 m) on a side. It remained the tallest occupied building ever destroyed until September 11, 2001 collapse of the nearby World Trade Center. It is still currently the tallest building ever legitimately demolished. It is also thought to have been the tallest free-standing structure ever demolished until the destruction of the Avala TV Tower on April 29, 1999.

Location