New York Mutual Life Insurance Building

The architect for the original New York Mutual Life Insurance Building at 1001-1005 Chestnut Street in the 1870s was a New Yorker named Henry Fernbach. The building's plan is a reverse E shape, allowing for light wells capped by a domed skylight. The floors vary in their decorative use of engaged columns, pilasters, balustrades, and arcades. The corner of the building at the street corner has a curved face. The building is 58 feet wide along Chestnut Street, with a central raised, arched entrance. The building reaches 176 feet on the east side facing Tenth Street, with a balcony centered on the second floor topped by a one-bay-wide porch, with amphora-like urns decorating the corners. A Palladian window above the balcony on the third floor is flanked by wreathed medallions bearing dates: 1843 for the year of the company's founding and 1873 for the year the original building was constructed.

The New York Mutual Life Insurance Building is considered one of the best surviving examples of French Second Empire architecture in the country. It was the first office building in Philadelphia to be built in this style. Although the building was altered in the 1890s from the 1870s configuration, the new floors added above the three lower original floors are in keeping with the architectural style, but are not as elaborate, in keeping with changing tastes. Plus, the original mansard roof was reportedly reused atop the new floors. The heating and ventilation system was redone in the 1890-1891 modifications and new elevators were installed. Another New York architect, Phillip W. Roos, was responsible for the 1890s project.

When the building was constructed in the 1870s, the neighboring building to the west was a store owned by Charles J. Rogers. The store was demolished in the 1880s and a high-rise was built in its place. The New York Mutual Company expanded its offices into the neighboring high-rise by 1895; it came to be called the company's annex building. Some of the tenants in the twentieth century were: John L. Clarkeson and Company in 1900; the Willis-Winchester Company (real estate) in 1917; the Philadelphia Cigar and Tobacco Merchants' Association in 1919; Frank Presbey Advertising in 1919; Burt & Burt (engraving) in 1921, and Bundy Typewriters in 1969.

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Webster, Richard J. NRHP Nomination of NY Mutual Life Insurance Building, Philadelphia. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 1979.

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