Bradford Gilbert

Bradford Lee Gilbert (24 March 1853–1 September 1911) was a nationally-active architect based in New York City.
Gilbert is best known for designing the first steel-framed curtain wall building in New York, the Tower Building, which opened at 50 Broadway in 1889. The Tower Building is considered New York City's first skyscraper. There is some dispute as to whether the Tower Building had eleven or thirteen floors, depending on which floors were counted and which side of the building was considered. It had to have the steel-frame construction because on its narrow lot, masonry-supporting walls would have allowed almost no free space on the first floor. Gilbert's design used the same frame as a railroad bridge, but rotated vertically. The Tower Building was initially greeted with great skepticism, with members of the public predicting it would blow over. This prompted Gilbert to scale the building in the middle of an 1889 hurricane to demonstrate with a plumb line that the building was not vibrating. The building was razed in 1914.
Born in Watertown, New York, Gilbert had been appointed architect of the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad by the age of 23. Among his extensive work for multiple railroads across the country, Gilbert also designed a previous version of New York City's Grand Central Terminal in 1898. Most of his New York buildings have been demolished, but his landmark eleven story Flatiron Building (1898) still stands in Atlanta, Georgia, and predates the similar and more famous New York City Flatiron Building by five years.
Gilbert was also the supervising architect for the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition (1895) and the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition (1901).
Gilbert died at his home in Brooklyn in 1911.

(listed by year built)

• South Side Sportsmen's Club, Great River, New York, 1866
• New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad Station, Avon, New York, 1879
• Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad East Saginaw Depot, Saginaw, Michigan, 1881
• Central Railroad & Rockaway Valley R.R. Station, Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, 1890
• Central Railroad of New Jersey Station, Main Street, Whitehouse, New Jersey, 1890
• Beaverkill Lodge - Bradford Lee Gilbert's summer residence (aka Dundas Castle), Craig-E-Clair, Roscoe, New York, ca. 1891
• Laconia Passenger Station, Laconia, New Hampshire, 1892
• Old Colony Railroad Depot, Canton Junction, Canton, Massachusetts, 1892
• Concord & Montreal Railroad Passenger Station, Amoskeag, New Hampshire, 1892
• Caldwell Railway Passenger Station, Essex-Fells, New Jersey, 1892
• New York, New Haven and Hartford Depot, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, 1893
• Concord & Montreal Railroad Station, Depot Street, New Boston, New Hampshire, 1893
• New York, Ontario & Western Railroad Station, Low Avenue off Wickham Avenue, Middletown, Orange County, New York, 1893
• New York, New Haven and Hartford Depot, North Abington, Massachusetts, 1894
• Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad Depot, 600 East 3rd Street, Sedalia, Missouri, 1895
• Flatiron Building, Atlanta, Georgia, 1897
• Boston & Maine RR Passenger Station, 10 Park Street, Beverly, Massachusetts, 1897
• Central Station, for the Illinois Central Railroad, Chicago, Illinois, 1893, razed 1974
• Central Railroad of New Jersey Passenger Station, Lebanon, New Jersey, 1899
• D.,L. & W. R.R. Passenger Station, Bernardsville, New Jersey, 1901
• William G. Raoul House, Atlanta, Georgia, 1901 (destroyed by fire in 1991)
• Central Railroad of New Jersey Plainfield Twin Passenger Station, Plainfield, New Jersey, 1902
• Long Island Railroad Passenger Station, Oyster Bay, New York, 1902
• Long Island Railroad Passenger Station and Baggage Building, Railroad Plaza, Southampton, New York, 1902
• Philadelphia & Reading Company Passenger Station, Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, 1903
• Tower Building, New York, New York, 1889, razed 1914

Gilbert was also heavily involved in the work of Jerry McAuley at the Water Street Rescue Mission in New York and continued to support the mission after McAuley's death. Gilbert married Maria McAuley, McAuley's widow, eight years after McAuley died of tuberculosis.