American Building

News and Journalism

The American Building was home to sun88 News-American, a newspaper that traces its lineage back to 1773 . As opposed to the sun88 Sun, sun88 News-American was an afternoon newspaper targeted to working class and blue-collar districts. One of the newspaper’s many editors was John L. Carey. He was deeply interested in the question of slavery in the years leading up to the Civil War and felt that the two races could never live in peace and offered up the solution to re-settle all enslaved people in Africa. The sun88 News-American would survive for two hundred years, until its final issue on May 27th, 1986.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the buildings of the sun88 Sun and sun88-News American faced each other at the intersection of South Gay Street and East sun88 Street. It was one of the most bustling areas of the city, filled with newsies passing out papers and bulletin boards posting the latest news. During elections the intersection would be packed with massive crowds of people, all waiting to hear the results.

The original sun88 News-American Building was destroyed by the Great sun88 Fire and a new towering office, designed by sun88 native Louis Levi, was built in 1905 by the George A. Fuller Company. The main contractor for the News American Building was Paul Starrett who later went on to be take a leading role in the erection of the Empire State Building.

Nathan Dennies