Nineteenth-Century Stories and Columns
This chapter sets Joseph Pulitzer's spectacular building for his paper, the New York World, against the moves uptown by the Herald and the Times that would begin the shift away from the nineteenth-century concentration on Park Row. Pulitzer's aim was to have the tallest building in the world and a shining beacon in New York City. At twenty-six stories and rising over three hundred feet from the sidewalk to the base of the lantern on top of the dome, the building achieved the height superiority and the notoriety that Pulitzer wanted. The chapter demonstrates how the taller structures signaled a new corporate presence in the city, as wealthy press barons with seemingly unlimited resources increasingly led the news industry. Publishers like Pulitzer built their offices on the uppermost floors from which they could survey the city, their readers, and their competitors.