Daniel D. Badger
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Daniel D. Badger (15 October 1806–1884[3]) was an American founder, working in New York City under the name Architectural Iron Works. With James Bogardus, he was one of the major forces in creating a cast-iron architecture in the United States.[4] Christopher Gray of The New York Times remarks: "Most cast-iron buildings present problems of authorship – it is hard to tell if it was the founder or the architect who actually designed the facade."[1]
Badger's illustrated catalogues of cast-iron architectural elements provided the most extensive and ambitious offering of them in 19th-century America. Originally intended as an advertising device, the catalogue issued in 1865 was reprinted in 1981, with an introduction by Margot Gayle,[5] and was digitized in 2011 by the Internet Archive with the support of the New York chapter of the Victorian Society of America.[6]
Life and career
Badger was born in 1806 to a shipbuilding family on
Badger's Architectural Iron Works sent prefabricated cast-iron elements as far afield as
Badger was also one of the founding partners of the New York Sanitary and Chemical Compost Manufacturing Company (incorporated 1864) for the purpose of manufacturing street-cleaning equipment and the composting of fertilizing manures from the horse manure and other refuse of city streets.[14]
Badger retired in 1873, and died in 1884. Daniel Badger is interred in Green-Wood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, New York.
Surviving works
In New York today, the most prominent surviving buildings for which Badger fabricated the cast iron are:[15]
- E. V. Haughwout Building (John P. Gaynor, architect, 1856–57), at Broadway and Broome Street;
- New York City landmark in 1982;[16]
- Condict saddlery Store (New York City landmark in 1988, the largest extant cast-iron "sperm-candle" design, where the two-story columns recall candles made of sperm-whale oil[17]
- New York City landmark in 1989.[18]
Other extant buildings which feature facades cast by Badger include:
- East 29th Street with an elaborate cast-iron curtain wall;
- "Little Cary Building" (Houston Streets, received its modern nickname because of its similarity to the Cary Building;[20]
- New York City landmark in 1989, one of a small number of buildings in lower Manhattan which date from the mid-1800s.[21]
- 50 Warren Street (architect unknown, c.1860)[22]
- The Iron Block Building in Milwaukee was built in 1860 and is listed on the NRHP.[23]
Badger's cast legends D.D. Badger &Co. NY and ARCHITECTURAL IRON WORKS can still be found at the base of store-front details throughout Manhattan's
References
Notes
- ^ a b Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes:620 Broadway; An 1858 Cast-Iron Palazzo, Now in Its Blue Period" The New York Times (May 1, 2005)
- ^ White & Willensky, p.157
- ^ Age given as 78 in his obituary in American Architect and Architecture, 16 (1884:254); date given in The New York Times obituary, 19 November 1884:p2, quoted in Grutchfield 2009; biographical details are from these notices
- ^ "Daniel D. Badger and Bogardus were leading advocates in developing cast iron" notes G. E. Kidder Smith, Source Book of American Architecture: 500 Notable Buildings, 2000.
- ^ Badger's Illustrated Catalogue of Cast-iron Architecture, Dover Pub., (1981)
- ^ Digitized Badger's Illustrated Catalogue of Cast-iron Architecture
- ^ The island is across the state border in Kittery, Maine.
- ^ Buckingham, Joseph T. (ed.) Annals of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association (Boston, 1853:287).
- ^ Obituary, 1884.
- ^ a b c Gayle, p.16.
- ^ Bishop, John Leander et al., A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860 (3rd ed., vol. III 1868:20): Charles Reed still appears in the Boston city directory for 1848 as "Reed Charles (D.D. Badger & Co.) 7 Haverhill".
- ^ Obituary 1884; the 1865 catalogue gives this address on its front cover.
- ^ Obituary.
- ^ Documents of the Senate of the State of New York, Volume 2 (1865:602).
Badger resided in Brooklyn, New York.
- ^ White, Norval; Willensky, Elliot & Leadon, Fran (eds.). AIA Guide to New York City (Fifth edition) New York, Oxford University Press (2010:81, 83).
- ^ NYCLPC, p.30
- ^ NYCLPC, p. 35
- ^ NYCLPC, p.34
- ^ NYCLPC, p. 80
- ^ White & Willensky, p. 157
- ^ NYCLPC, p.14
- ^ Wolfe, Gerard R. New York, 15 walking tours: an architectural guide to the metropolis, 2003:217.
- ^ Mary Ellen Wietczykowski (1974-08-17). Inventory-Nomination Form: Iron Block. National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved 2019-11-21. With one photo.
- ^ Walter Grutchfield, 2009: details of the foundry marks, biographical details
Bibliography
- Gayle, Margot. Cast-iron architecture in America: the significance of James Bogardus, 1998
- ISBN 978-0-470-28963-1.
- ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5.
External links
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