John B. Snook

John B[utler] Snook (1815 — 1901) was an American architect who practiced in New York City.[2]

Born in England, Snook emigrated to the United States with his family as a child. He was trained as a carpenter in his father's carpentry business, and was largely self-taught as an architect. In 1842 he joined the New York firm of Joseph Trench, and within five years he was the junior partner in the firm, working as Trench and Snook, in which capacity he was the designer of the A. T. Stewart department store (1846) on Broadway, the first luxury dry-goods store in America.[3] Its "palazzo mode— borrowed from Charles Barry's London clubs"—"[4] set a style for New York commercial hotels that lasted until mid-century. In the partnership he was also the architect of the brownstone-sheathed Metropolitan Hotel (1851-52 )erected in the same "palazzo" taste on Broadway at Prince Street,[5] and the marble-clad St. Nicholas Hotel (1854) on Broadway at Spring Street.[6]

After Trench moved west to San Francisco in 1857, Snook continued to work in New York City on his own. Most of his buildings were in the city, but he also designed and constructed buildings in the city of Brooklyn in Westchester County, and in New Jersey. Three sons, James H., Samuel B., and Edward T., eventually joined his practice, doing business as John B. Snook & Sons. One of his sons-in-law, John W. Boylston, also worked in the firm.[7] Stephen Decatur Hatch worked as a draftsman in Snook's office, 1860-64.

Cast-iron for Snook's commercial building facades was provided by Cornell Iron Works and by Daniel D. Badger's Architectural Iron Works.[8] Most of his work was in commercial buildings, warehouses and tenements,[9] but Snook also designed churches, hotels, institutions[10] and hospitals, and some residences, such as the villa in North Tarrytown, New York, commissioned by Anson G. Phelps (1851).[11] In 1869, Cornelius Vanderbilt employed Snook to design the first Grand Central Depot, which served as the main passenger terminal for the New York and Harlem Railroad and the New York Central Railroad.

In 1836 Snook married Maria A. Weekes, with whom he had nine surviving children. Snook died at his home in Brooklyn in 1901; the firm carried on as John B. Snooks, Sons.[12] His papers, including an archive of architectural drawings, are conserved in the New-York Historical Society.[13]

Notes

  1. ^ AIA Guide to New York City
  2. ^ The monograph is Mary Ann Clegg Smith, The Commercial Architecture of John Butler Snook, (Pennsylvania State University Press) 1974.
  3. ^ Mary Ann Smith, "John Snook and the design for A. T. Stewart's Store", The New-York Historical Society Quarterly 581974.
  4. ^ Sarah Bradford Landau and Carl W. Condit, Rise of the New York Skyscraper: 1865-1913 1999:43; "a grand commercialized style reminiscent of Roman palazzos" according to Jan Seidler Ramirez, Michele Helene Bogart and William R. Taylor, Painting the Town: cityscapes of New York: paintings from the Museum of the City of New York (2000:116), describing a painting of the Metropolitan Hotel, c1852.
  5. ^ The Boreel building (1849-50) is another Trench and Snook "palazzo", noted by Landau and Condit 1999:43; it occupied the full block bounded by Broadway, Cedar, Thames, and Temple Streets, the site of the former City Hotel, which Trench and Snook's palace hotels had rendered out-of-date.
  6. ^ Biographical details: New-York Historical Society: Guide to the John B. Snook architectural record collection; "St. Nicholas Hotel", The Gentleman's Magazine, 1856: n.b. "1844" is a misprint.
  7. ^ New-York Historical Society: Guide to the John B. Snook architectural record collection
  8. ^ Snook's 620 Broadway (1858), called the "Little Cary Building" for its resemblance to the Cary Building by Gamaliel King and John Kellum (1856), was fronted with cast iron from Badger's Architectural Iron Works.
  9. ^ For example the tenement building at 64 Oliver Street (1889), near the Manhattan Bridge, built as a speculation for Roderick Green, completed in five months' time for about $6000. (Howard Davis, The Culture of Building 2006:62f).
  10. ^ Odd Fellows Hall (1847-48), Grand Street, survives (with some additions) and is a New York Landmark (Barbaralee Diamonstein, The Landmarks of New York: 3, 1998:100, designated 24 August 1982).
  11. ^ John Zukowsky and Robbe Pierce Stimson, Hudson River Villas, 1985:105.
  12. ^ The civil engineer James Kip Finch briefly worked in the firm in 1907.
  13. ^ New-York Historical Society: Guide to the John B. Snook architectural record collection