E. V. Haughwout Building

The E. V. Haughwout Building at the corner of Broadway and Broome Street serves as a cornerstone of New York City architectural history. Completed in eighteen fifty-seven, the structure is widely considered one of the finest examples of cast-iron architecture in the country. Its design mimics the ornate, arcaded style of the Sansovino Library in Venice, bringing a touch of Italian Renaissance elegance to the nineteenth-century city streets. While many contemporary buildings relied on brickwork to support their weight, this building utilized its cast-iron frame as the actual structural skeleton, a daring engineering choice that prefigured the steel-framed skyscrapers of the future.