Wings Over Broadway, 1917
Telephone History, Vintage Photographs September 15th. 2008, 10:09am
From 1916 to 1983 the AT&T corporate headquarters was located at 195 Broadway, shown here in the year 1917. Famed architect William Welles Bosworth was commissioned to design the building in 1913, a structure said to feature “more Classical columns than any facade in the world.” The late-neoclassical building was host to numerous records and firsts, including the distinction of using more marble than any other building in New York. The Vermont marble was cut and polished in New Jersey, floated by barge to Manhattan, then moved to the construction site via eight-horse teams. If the exterior was impressive, the interior lobby was breathtaking, regarded as the most spectacular commercial space in the city.
So bold a statement required a topper, so Evelyn Beatrice Longwood was commissioned to sculpt a bronze statue in 1914. Completed in 1916, the sixteen-ton statue was mounted to a pyramid-like structure on top of the building. Originally named by the artist, The Genius of Telegraphy, but before the installation the name
had been changed to, The Genius of Electricity. It was renamed again in the ’30s to, The Spirit of Communication, but it is by the nickname, Golden Boy, that the statue is best known.
Since the 1983 break-up the statue has moved three times. He occupied the lobby of AT&T’s headquarters on Madison Avenue as AT&T divested itself of local telephone companies, including Southwestern Bell. (Southwestern Bell, which later became SBC Communications, acquired its former parent company in 2005 and renamed itself AT&T.) Then it was on to Basking Ridge, New Jersey in 1992, and finally to Bedminster, N.J. Will this be the Golden Boy’s final rest? Highly unlikely. The first photo can be seen in big or huge versions, as can the 2nd: (big, huge)
