MultiStories: 55 Antique Skyscrapers & the Business Tycoons Who Built Them

The New York Landmarks Conservancy, in partnership with The General Society of Mechanics & Tradesmen of the City of New York cordially invites you to:

MultiStories: 55 Antique Skyscrapers & the Business Tycoons Who Built Them
With author Mark Houser

Peg Breen, President, The New York Landmarks Conservancy will provide introductory remarks.

New York and Chicago are the birthplaces of skyscrapers, but tall office towers radically transformed every city in America. For his new book, MultiStories: 55 Antique Skyscrapers & the Business Tycoons Who Built Them, Mark Houser traveled widely to find the best landmark high-rises in 36 cities in the United States and abroad. In this talk, the award-winning writer and speaker will discuss his extensive research with observations gleaned from touring these spectacular old high-rises, with a focus on New York. His presentation will include Beaux-Arts facades, dazzling lobbies, rooftop decks, and behind-the-scenes surprises in antique skyscrapers from Manhattan to Miami, Cincinnati to San Francisco, and unexpected details about the Gilded Age millionaires who commissioned the world’s first skyscrapers. These soaring structures — “machines that make the land pay,” as Woolworth Building architect Cass Gilbert described them — proclaimed their owners’ influence and remain as legacies of a fascinating, forgotten past.

Mark Houser is an award-winning journalist and frequent public speaker who has appeared on CNN, FOX, and NPR, and given a TEDx Talk. Hundreds of people have taken his “Antique Skyscraper Rooftops” guided tour in Pittsburgh. For more information on Mr. Houser, and to purchase the book, please visit www.housertalks.com.

“Buildings tell stories, and Mark Houser has captured them in a fascinating look at historic skyscrapers from an era of growth and optimism.” — Peg Breen, New York Landmarks Conservancy.