Griffith Thomas Explained

Griffith Thomas (1820 - 1879) was an American architect. He partnered with his father, Thomas Thomas, at the architecture firm of T. Thomas and Son.^[1]

Architecture writer Christopher Gray called him "one of the most prolific architects of the period", referring to the mid-19th century.^[2] The American Institute of Architects in 1908 called him "the most fashionable architect of his generation."^[3] Many of his notable buildings are found in New York City.

Griffith Thomas was interred at Green-Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, New York in 1879. His own marble monument is simple in comparison to the ornate structures he built during his lifetime.^[4]

Selected works

• St. Nicholas Hotel (1853), 507-27 Broadway, demolished. 1,000 guest rooms.
• Fifth Avenue Hotel (1859), 200 Fifth Avenue (23rd to 24th Streets), demolished. Replaced by Robert Maynicke's Toy Center Building, 1909.
• Astor Library (1859 expansion), 444 Lafayette Street. Now the center section of The Public Theater.
• Madison Avenue Baptist Church (1859).^[5] Demolished.
• Mortimer Building (1862), 935-939 Broadway (159 Fifth Avenue) Flatiron House. Now Restoration Hardware Building .
• National Park Bank Building (1868, altered 1905), 214-18 Broadway, demolished 1961
• Pike's Opera House (1868), 8th Avenue & 23rd Street, later renamed the Grand Opera House, demolished 1960.^{[1] [6]}
• Arnold Constable Building (1869), Broadway & West 19th Street
• New York Life Insurance Building (1870), 346 Broadway. Altered and expanded by McKim, Mead & White, 1904.
• 12 East 53rd Street (1872). Altered by Raleigh C. Gildersleeve, 1906.
• Gunther Building (1872), 469-75 Broome Street, cast-iron facade.^[7]
• Hotel Bristol (1875), 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, New York City, for the former shipbuilder and financier William H. Webb, demolished.^{[8] [9]}
• Kimball House Hotel (1870) Entire city block between Whitehall (now Peachtree) Street, Decatur Street, Pryor Street, and Wall Street, Atlanta, [8] with William Parkins, burned 1883. 500 rooms, early use of elevators and central heating, 4-story lobby, 16 shops.^[10]

Notes

1. https://books.google.com/books?id=3hpLAQAAMAAJ "Correspondence: The Death of Mr. Griffith Thomas"
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/realestate/26scapes.html "On Canal Street, a Sooty Survivor of a Grander Time"
3. https://books.google.com/books?id=2Z0DAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA7-PA303 Architectural Record No. 24
4. Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery: New York's Buried Treasure, by Jeffrey I. Richman
5. "New York Builders and Architects," The Building News 5 (May 20, 1859): 461
6. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1867-07-01/ed-1/seq-4/ "A New Metropolitan Theater—Pike's Opera House"
7. New York: A Guide to the Metropolis, by Gerard R. Wolfe
8. News: William H. Webb Dead. 13 February 2018. New York Times. 31 October 1899.
9. Book: The American Architect and Building News. 31 May 1879. 175. 13 February 2018.
10. Funderburke, Richard D. "William H. Parkins (1836-1894)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 17 July 2013. Web. 18 July 2019.

External links

• "The Gunther Building", New York Architectural Images.
• "Arnold Constable Building", by edenpictures, on Flickr.
• "The Old Astor Library, Now the Joseph Papp Public Theater", by Christopher Gray, New York Times, February 10, 2002.
• "Former New York Life Insurance Company Building", The Masterpiece Next Door, archived by Internet Archive's Wayback Machine on December 7, 2008.
• Green-Wood Cemetery Burial Search