Mail and Express Building Broadway, Fulton St.

Below, text from the source, the King’s Handbook:

«The Mail and Express is pre-eminently a leading evening newspaper of New York. It is "newsy," in the professional sense of the word, in that its record of the day's events is comprehensive, and is carried down to the latest possible moment. Its editorial page is dignified and scholarly. Its political faith is Republican, and it is a leader in expressing the opinion of the party. As its name suggests, the Mail and Express is a consolidation of two newspapers. The New-York Evening Express was established in 1839, and for many years it was edited by James and Erastus Brooks. The New-York Evening Mail, an evening daily paper, was started about 1869 [1867]. The consolidation of the two into one great newspaper was effected by the late Cyrus W. Field. He purchased the Mail in 1880, and the Express two years later. The combined establishment was purchased by the late Col. Elliot F. Shepard, in March, 1888, and since then the paper has made long strides.

It is the only evening paper that has a franchise in the New-York Associated Press. The new Mail and Express Building, on Broadway and St. Paul's Churchyard [Fulton Street], is one of the most elaborate newspaper establishments in the country. It is T-shaped in form, thus, T. Its Broadway front measures 25 feet, and its depth 100 feet. The St. Paul's Churchyard front is 77 feet, and the depth of that section of the T is 90 feet. There are eleven stories, and the highest point is 211 feet above the curb. The building is a handsome illustration of the French Renaissance (Henry the Second) style of architecture, designed by Carrere & Hastings. Four large figures, allegorically representing the four continents, adorn the lower story of the Broadway façade. The material is Indiana limestone throughout, with steel construction. The newspaper establishment occupies the basement for mechanical purposes, the first story as a business office, and the tenth and eleventh stories for editorial departments and the composing-room. The new Hoe presses in the new building are capable of printing 98,000 papers an hour. The motive powers for the machinery and the Otis elevators are electricity and steam.

Col. Shepard imprinted his strong and fearless personality upon all departments of the paper, making it clean, pure and sweet, and at the same time bright and enterprising. The superabundant space devoted by some journals to minute and wiredrawn records of crime, the successive rounds of a prize fight, the gory details of a murder, is avoided in the Mail and Express, which devotes its space to the best and most interesting general news of the day, to careful accounts of philanthropic, charitable, religious and educational movements, and to the leading and happiest events in social life. This sweetness and light in one of New-York's greatest secular dailies is the result of Col. Shepard's firm and faithful policy, and stands as a monument to his finished life.»

In 1904, the newspaper became the Evening Mail again. In 1915 the newspaper was acquired by Edward Rumely with financing from a source in Germany. The building was demolished in 1920 and replaced by the expansion of the Telephone and Telegraph Building at 195 Broadway.

• Lower Broadway in the Second Half of 19th Century ►