It was built in 1909–10 as a commercial office building and was designed by Henry Ives Cobb in a Gothic Revival style.

Upon its completion, Liberty Tower was said to be the world's tallest building with such a small footprint, having a floor area ratio of 30 to 1.

The building's articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital.

The law office of future U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of its first commercial tenants after the building opened in 1910.

In 1979, architect Joseph Pell Lombardi converted the building from commercial use into residential apartments and renamed it the "Liberty Tower", in one of the first such conversions in Manhattan south of Canal Street.

[10][8][a] The building was designed in the English Gothic style,[5] and was influenced by Cobb's experiences in the École des Beaux-Arts and the Chicago school of architecture.

[7][13] The Liberty Tower's articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital.

[14][15] The freestanding facades are covered in white architectural terracotta ornamented with birds, alligators, gargoyles and other fanciful subjects.

[18] The Liberty Tower, while smaller than other skyscrapers being built at the time, was one of New York City's first structures to be clad entirely with terracotta.

[12][19] With a floor area ratio of over 30:1, the Liberty Tower was believed to be the world's slimmest skyscraper at the time of its completion.

[15][21] The Liberty Tower's foundations were dug with caissons sunk 94 feet (29 m) deep through the layers of quicksand and hardpan to the underlying bedrock.

[28] The eight caissons at the interior of the lot are cylindrical and made of steel plates with a reinforced cutting edge and a concrete deck.

The thirteen caissons at the lot's perimeter are rectangular and have four vertical sides made of planed timbers; they have a chamfered wooden cutting edge with steel reinforcement.

[28] After the piers were built, the rest of the foundation was excavated by hand to a depth of 37.5 feet (11.4 m) below the curb to provide space for the basement vaults.

[27] Distributing girders, which supported the superstructure's columns, were 37 feet (11 m) deep, slightly beneath the subbasement floor.

There was also a central figure depicting William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post, the newspaper whose headquarters occupied the Liberty Tower's site in the 19th century.

[43] By late December 1910, ownership was transferred to a receiver named Maurice Deiches, who was appointed to complete and insure the building, and to hire a renting agent.

[45] In addition, the syndicate controlling the building had taken out a $1.6 million loan from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

[46] A foreclosure auction was planned for July 1911,[47][48] but was canceled when control of the building was transferred to another company that June.

That year, Title Guarantee and Trust filed a foreclosure suit against Liberty-Nassau, and the building was sold at auction for $1.8 million to the Garden City Company, which held the second mortgage.

[51] In 1917, an office was leased as cover for German spies seeking to prevent America's intervention in World War I.

The plot involved an attempt to draw the United States into a diversionary war with Mexico and Japan.

[6] While in the building, Sinclair formulated the deals with the Warren G. Harding administration that led to the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s.

[56][57] It was sold again to the Ronor Realty Corporation in November 1947; at the time, there were 100 tenants paying $300,000 a year in rent.

[20] The architect Joseph Pell Lombardi, one of G. T. Properties' principals, agreed to pay $922,000, and he took ownership of the building after making a down payment of about $25,000.

[62] The Liberty Tower was designated a New York City landmark in 1982,[36] and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 15, 1983.

[64] When the Liberty Tower was completed, an unnamed critic in Architecture magazine lauded the use of the Gothic style for the facade's vertical lines.

They also praised 90 West Street and the Liberty Tower for the use of "a high sloping roof to complete the structure", saying that "this is a more desirable termination than a plain flat deck".