Woolworth Tours

We did the 90-​minute tour and it was excellent. The guide was excellent – she’s deeply passionate about the building and actively researching its history in the archives, so incredibly knowledgeable, and she’s funny too.
I’m so glad we did this tour and would definitely recommend it for others.

As a non-​NYC girl, I had no idea that this gorgeous building existed. Thanks to Ed Welter, I was able to learn all about the history of the Woolworth Building. His knowledge is immeasurable… he is a walking encyclopedia of everything NY (uh oh– I think I just dated myself– Google watch out).
As a visual learner, I was thrilled that Ed had a «book» of pictures to go along with his stories.
Ed was patient, thorough and entertaining.
Highly recommend taking this tour with Ed. I’m looking forward to going on other tours that he does when the weather warms up.
Thanks, Ed! Keep enlightening people about the little gems of NYC!

The 90 minute tour was as good as it gets. Our guide was the best and presented information regarding the building regarding the people involved. We got to see a lot of the building including the mezzanine and the tremendous vault in the basement. Not to be missed.

What a treasure! Our guide, Lisa, was very informed. Delightful afternoon. The tour is a must for anyone that loves New York, architecture and just a beautiful building.
P. S. The Café «Woolworth Tower Kitchen» is the best place to have lunch before your tour. We had dessert after, but wish we could have had lunch there too!

Took the 2pm. tour yesterday. The tour guide was absolutely amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed 90 minute tour of this beautiful building. I recommend the 90 minute version as it is the only one that goes up to the mezzanine level to get close up views of the two murals. Anyone interested in NYC architecture should try to check out the Woolworth Building The tour is the only way inside.

This was an excellent and informative tour of a space I’ve been trying to see for years — I’m so glad they finally opened it up. Ryan, my guide, was well informed and engaging. If you’re interested in architecture, it’s worth seeing this beautiful lobby and learning about the history and construction of the building.

Hubs and I did the 90 minute tour of this amazing building a couple of weekends ago. We live close by, I have always been curious to know more about the building and the architect. If history and architecture are your interests, I highly recommend taking one of the tours of this building.
Our tour guide was a wonderful fountain of information on the architect, Cass Gilbert, and the building itself. He made our tour a great experience. It was fascinating to hear all of the details of the construction, and the history of not only the Woolworth, but of the neighborhood, as well. did you know that there is a now defunct subway entrance in the basement of the building? I believe it connects with the now abandoned City Hall station, which is another place I would love to visit.
Our tour included discussion of the exterior, the lobby, the mezzanine, and the basement. I am not aware of any tour that includes the upper floors.
The Woolworth Building has three different tours. If you are the history buff, and you want to know more, I suggest the 90 minute tour. I really enjoyed it.

The 90 minute tour I took was fabulous! Our guide was as qualified as you can get as a writer, professor and a definite expert on the Woolworth Building. She amazed with the extent of her knowledge. The mosaic ceiling was beautiful beyond description, and the whole place opened up a more correct connection between the name and the merchandise he sold in his stores. As a child it was always a treat to go to the 5&10 cent store because it was one of few that could be afforded on an allowance. Now I truly understand how my nickels & dimes helped make the Mr. Woolworth a very rich man!

I took the tour yesterday. 2pm. The historical guide was perfection! Now I wish I could purchase a condo in the building!

I took this tour recently while in NYC on vacation and it was fantastic. The lobby is not open to the public so the tour is the only way to get inside. I took the 90 minute tour so I was able to view the mezzanine — it was long (just in terms of standing still for that long) but well worth it in the end. Our tour guide (I didn’t catch her name but she was from Minnesota) did a wonderful job taking us around the building outside and giving good history on the construction and then taking us inside and showing us the finer points and details along with additional history and information. I highly recommend the tour for anyone visiting New York. You will not be disappointed. Don’t forget your camera!

This is an excellent 60 minute tour made so because of the knowledge of the tour guide (Bob ?). He has clearly researched the history of the building, the owner, the architect, and others involved in this wonderful structure. Added value was his broad knowledge of other New York buildings and history.

Fabulous tour– wonderful owner but don’t take a tour with bob gellbert– (not sure of name) arrogant, rude and could care less about the people on his tour — it’s all about him!!!

My friend and I are both history buffs and thoroughly enjoyed our 60-​minute tour of this architectural masterpiece. Our guide from Woolworth Tours was filled with enthusiasm and amazing facts that made me appreciate this Lower Manhattan jewel even more than I already had. He also helped bring F.W. Woolworth back to life with colorful anecdotes and funny stories. Getting to explore areas of the building that are not usually open to the public was a great experience for tourists and lifelong New Yorkers alike.

The tour of the Woolworth building was amazing from many points of view. The tour guide had studied the building and its archives and was filled with interesting and pertinent information. The history of the building and its past and current challenges (including creating condominium living on the upper floors) was fascinating. The building was architecturally magnificent including the statuaries, mosaics, subway tunnels, elevator doors, bank offices and vaults, and more. The history of Frank Woolworth, his financial successes and his participation in the design was quite interesting. In all, we thought the visit was exceptionally worthwhile.

Hermoso edificio, que durante más de 20 años fue el rascacielos más alto del mundo. Su diseño es diferente al de los edificios más conocidos de new York, pero es igualmente maravilloso. Una parada imperdible para quien desee conocer new York.

I get to work here every day and every day I am awed by what a beautiful building this is. You can get tours, and that’s basically the only way to get pics of the beautiful mosaics when you walk in. I think this is one of the most underrated buildings in NYC. Some great history here and for a brief time it was the tallest building in the world!
Come and check out Woolworth. real beauty far better than Empire or Chrysler.

This building has always been one of my favorites; the classic neo-​gothic architecture is reminiscent of an era gone by, where buildings took years of planning and insane amounts of meticulously detailed craftsmanship to achieve grandness on a scale that is not seen today. That city has been replaced by a modern one; full dull glass behemoths competing for attention with angles that can be painful to the eye, pushing heights that are as impressive and dazzling as their forms are overly skinny and bland.
Don’t get me wrong, glass can be a powerful medium in architecture, and some buildings utilize it masterfully — The Hearst building for example is gorgeous in my opinion, with simple geometric angles that are pleasing (because they are symmetric). Others though are god awful, like the Westin at Times Square for instance — with painfully contrasting multicolored glass, and curves that don’t fit in with the surrounding buildings; it begs for attention like a cheap call girl in a part of town that is overly flamboyant for flamboyancies sake. And yet even the good examples of these quick build towers can’t compare with the stone and metal that makes up classics like the Woolworth. The iconic tower that rises from the rest of the building was a bold statement by the architects; it let the world know who they were, that this type of structure was difficult to achieve (it was the tallest building in the world from 1913 to 1930), and that it was to be a permanent feature of the growing skyline of lower Manhattan.
A hundred and two years later we still look up at the copper vaulted roof that’s turned green from suffering countless bouts of New York City rain, and marvel at the beauty that those pioneers of early skyscraper architecture were able to accomplish.

das Woolworth Building galt bei seiner Einweihing ¹⁹¹²⁄₁₃ als das achte Weltwunder. Der Bau kostete seinen Besitzer Franklin Winfiled Woolworth ca. 13,4 mio $. Das Building galt bis 1930 mit seinen 241 Metern als höchstes Gebäude der Welt. Es ist ein schöner aber unspektakuläres Gebäude. Wobei es dennoch einen sehr anziehenden Flair versprüht. Es besitzt viele Gotische und auch moderne Elemente, z.b. die Wasserspeier und Ecktürmchen an der Fassade. Durch seine Ästhetik hatte es auch den Namen «Kathedrale des Kommerz «erhalten.

The time is now, folks. How quickly we forget. Skyscrapers once meant something to the masses. They cut through clouds and anchored our once great cities. Now we don’t even look up anymore. We walk around with our heads down. Faces in our phones when they ought to be in the clouds. Cass Gilbert understood this. Let’s just say he would’ve been a flip phone guy given the chance. They say if you stare hard enough on a clear night, you can still see the face of Gilbert resting in the illuminated tower, watching, admiring but most of all smiling at his finest creation. We’re all the beneficiaries of such a proud monument to brawn and imagination.

The Cathedral of Commerce! They just don’t build them like they use to! The Woolworth Building is a Sheine to old world constuction and architecture. Absoutly stuning!
The Woolworth building is such a lavised building. When u step you feel like you should be looking for a peuw, because of the gorgeus Neo Gothic architecture. 100 years ago they never missed a detail! Millions of tiny details spans the beautiful building from the ornate loony to the crown in the sky!
Cass Gilbert did not miss a single detail while designing this piece of art!
The lavished sites of the Woolworth building complete the Manhattan skyline. From the Brookly Bridge-​WTC site– The bowery, the Woolworth looks great at any angle of view.
Nothing defines the beauty of old world architecture and New York early 20^th century like the Woolworth Building. This building should be celebrated more for it’s heritage and history. ¹⁰⁄₅ stars!

What do they say… they don’t make ‘em like they used to? This here building is a poster child for that old adage. Gorgeous.
The lobby of this building is so ornate, you feel like you’re stepping into a gothic cathedral. Built in different era, one where details line every corner, from the doorways to the walls, and exteriors 40 floors up.
I worked in this building back in 99 or so, for an internet startup which had recently moved here. It was a pleasure going to their offices. Not a detail out of place.
If you have guests in from out of town, they may meander down this way, but won’t be able to really gawk inside as the lobby is somewhat strict about who they allow in the building.

I loved working in this building for 3.5 years – it has so much character. Walking to it through City Hall Park every morning always make weekday mornings a little better.
The interior is beautiful though tourists aren’t allowed in. You can get a pretty view of the lobby interior through the NYU entrance on Barclay Street but you’d need NYU ID to go in there as well.
I often see filming of a few TV series here: Ugly Betty, Blue Bloods. And you can hear protests, concerts, and all sorts of events from City Hall all the way to the 17^th floor. As you work, you get used to tuning all the sounds out.
They have Christmas choir singing in the lobby every year in front of the huge Christmas tree they put up. Unfortunately, I don’t have good things to say about the old elevators in these old buildings.

At one point, I wanted to be an architect, before I realized that everything I built would probably end up being neo-​Gothic in design. I guess Frank Woolworth had the same problem, because when he commissioned Cass Gilbert to build his towering skyscraper, he insisted that it be built in a neo-​Gothic style – despite knowing that that specific architectural form was reserved primarily for religious structures. No matter, thought Woolworth; he would just have a Cathedral of Commerce. And so went up my favorite building in all of New York City.
So many things about this building amaze me. First, the size of it is magnificent, especially since at the time it was built, it was the tallest building in the world. The fact that it dwarfs so many of the buildings around it – including Trinity Church and City Hall – only adds to its grandeur. Second, despite being built before the institution of legislation that required the «setting back» of buildings over a certain height, the Woolworth is actually set back in its rear; perhaps Gilbert had a sense of things to come, or perhaps he wanted to even further emphasize the sheer magnitude of the building’s face. And third: that copper top! If I can stand all the way at West 4^th and Broadway and see it, you know Gilbert did something right.
Security has been beefed up since 9/​11, but you can still see the lobby, which is decorated in colorful marble in an ornateness rarely seen outside of… cathedrals. You might get chased off by a guard, but trust me, it’s worth it. And if you get the chance to visit an office in the building, like I did a few years ago, take it. The gilded elevators take you to floors where the views are simply breath-​taking.
Bathroom Grade: N/​A. Security. And all that.

Hi… uh…I was sitting over there in Tribeca having a drink and couldn’t help seeing you standing there around Wall Street… Do you mind if I sit down?
No! Don’t run away — You can’t…Why? Well, because you’re rooted in Manhattan Schist! Solid bedrock!
OK…here’s the thing… God. Jeez. I think you’re great. You’ve got so much style. Guys must tell you this all the time but… um…you look like a really extruded Gothic cathedral!
Pardon my language, but you’re built like a brick skyscraper (although, actually, you’re made out of a steel frame with glazed terra cotta exterior decorative elements)!
57 stories tall. You’re one of the twenty tallest buildings in New York!
You’ve got a great career going for yourself. You’re one of the world’s first skyscrapers. You were born in 1913. Hey, age is only a number! You’re hotter than any of those 6^th Avenue buildings built in the 1960s.
You’ve rubbed shoulders with some real heavyweights — The Singer Building, the Twin Towers… And you’re cool, too. Columbia Records was one of your tenants.
Hey, who am I kidding, a guy like me. A schmo, talking to you. A guy who should be hanging out in Palookaville instead of Woolworthville. Trying to get something going with the Woolworth Building! Well, thanks for the drink.
I’ll see you around!

The Woolworth Building is so sorely unappreciated what with the Empire State Building, 30 Rock, the Chrysler Building, and the New New York Times Building hogging up all the face time.
But every time you’re walking near City Hall you see the marvelous copper top, the pronounced neo-​Gothic details and the architectural beauty that this building is; you can’t resist looking at it as it peaks the skyline.
A couple fun facts: the neo-​Gothic details are so pronounced so that you can see them while you’re looking up at street level; also, the building cost $ 13.5M to construct (expense mostly due to zoning laws) and its commissioner and namesake, Frank Woolworth, paid for it in CASH. (Baller.)
On a dark rainy night it’s even prettier than in the daytime.