Built in 1932 and then called The Commerce Building, it’s no New York skyscraper. Only 16 stories tall, nonetheless the facility is huge — covering an entire city block, from 15th Street to 16th Street and from Eighth Avenue to Ninth Avenue. There is 2.8 million square feet of floor space, and in the beginning, it was reported as the second largest building in the world.
In the 1960s, the Port Authority of New York, the original builder, sold the building to a private interest.