The site formerly contained Tammany Hall and the Academy of Music, as well as the offices of Con Ed's predecessor, Consolidated Gas.

[8][9][10] It is near Zeckendorf Towers to the west, Irving Plaza and the Daryl Roth Theatre to the northwest, and Christ Church Lutheran to the north.

[6] The site was originally occupied by the Lenape Native Americans until 1651, when a large tract from Bowery (now Fourth Avenue) to the East River between 3rd and 30th Streets was given to New Netherland director-general Peter Stuyvesant.[11]: (v.

[1] When the Manhattan street grid was laid out with the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, space was provided for what would become Union Square, one block west of the present-day Consolidated Edison Building, which opened in 1839.

To the east of the square, between Fourth and Third Avenues, a community of rowhouses as well as a north–south street called Irving Place were developed by Samuel B.

[1] The Manhattan Gas Light Company purchased land at the southeast corner of 15th Street and Irving Place in 1855, where it erected a Renaissance Revival office structure.

[13] Just south of the Gas Light Company's office was the Academy of Music, New York's third opera house,[14][15] which opened in 1854.

[17] The Tammany Hall political organization purchased the former medical school site and built its headquarters building there.

[20] Consolidated Gas hired Henry Janeway Hardenbergh to design a 12-story office building on that site in late 1911.

Plans for a 12-story structure on that site were filed with the Manhattan Bureau of Buildings in December 1910,[24][25] and the George A. Fuller Company was hired as the general contractor.

[21] The first phase of construction, between January and September 1911, entailed erecting a 62-foot-wide (19 m) edifice on the center of the block at 124–128 East 15th Street.

[20] Consolidated Gas bought additional property to the east in June 1912;[27] the purchase was finalized that November, giving the company a lot measuring nearly 300 feet (91 m) wide.

[30][31] The relatively new headquarters at 124–128 East 15th Street had not been intended to support additional stories, as Consolidated Gas had erroneously assumed that the structure would be sufficient for the company's needs.

[40][41] Consolidated Gas hired Warren and Wetmore, which had previously designed some of the company's branch offices as architects.

[42] The Tammany Hall building on 14th Street was sold to Joseph P. Day and J. Clarence Davis, of real estate syndicate D&D Company, in December 1927.

[63] In 1975, the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña, a Puerto Rican nationalist group, claimed responsibility for a bombing that caused minor damage to the building, but injured no one.

[8] By then, the space was occupied by such tenants as the New York Sports Club, the Apple Bank for Savings, and a Raymour & Flanigan furniture store.

In the original plans, the lowest three levels were to contain storefronts, with double-height segmental arches along the facade of the ground and second floors.

Elements of several architectural styles were used, including the Beaux-Arts base, Baroque midsection, and the Renaissance Revival and neoclassical decorations on top.

"[73] Such illumination had been used previously in the city, notably at Luna Park and Dreamland amusement parks at Coney Island, as well as during the 1909 Hudson Fulton Celebration, when illumination was placed on the East River bridges and on major structures such as the Singer Building and the Plaza Hotel.

[71] However, it was still relatively rare for office buildings to be illuminated each night, though such lighting schemes were commonly tested at the premises of power companies.

Throughout the Warren and Wetmore section of the building, there is light-inspired ornamentation including depictions of urns, torches, lamps, thunderbolts, and suns.

[75] The ornamentation at the tower's peak included urns and obelisks, which were normally associated with funereal aspects, and was modeled after the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.

The lights cycled through 21 colors within three minutes[59] When completed in 1914, the original Consolidated Gas Building contained a large auditorium, in addition to a restaurant on the 19th floor.

[34] By 1928, Consolidated Gas purported to have the world's largest privately owned telephone switchboard, with 60,000 jacks maintained by 75 operators.

[32] Robert A. M. Stern wrote in 1983 that Hardenbergh's blending of styles for the original building—as used on another of his commissions, the Plaza Hotel near Central Park—demonstrated a "masterful combination of gemuetlichkeit and Classical rigor".

A critic in The New Yorker wrote in 1929 that the addition, "interestingly wedged in between the flanking buildings", included "a sturdy shaft, classic in detail and vigorous in silhouette".

[82] The New Yorker writer further explained that the building was well integrated into the features of the neighboring structures and employed a good use of setbacks, but that the cornice above the base was slightly offset.