Battery Park City was built on filled land along the shore of the river, cutting off the West Street Building from a view of the waterfront. Architecture The West Street Building is tall and contains 23 above-ground floors. It was designed by Cass Gilbert, who had designed numerous public structures and government buildings in the Beaux Arts style. From the start, Gilbert intended the West Street Building as "a machine that makes the land pay". In an article for the Engineering News-Record, he wrote that in general, "architectural beauty, judged even from an economic standpoint, has an income-bearing value". The West Street Building was one of the first skyscrapers to consistently use neo-Gothic-style decoration. At the time, it was still relatively rare for a steel-skeleton skyscraper to contain terracotta cladding, as the West Street Building did. The decoration was inspired by the Gothic architecture of Belgium, using religious models such as the St. Rumbold's Cathedral in Mechelen, as well as secular models such as Brussels Town Hall. Furthermore, in his initial plans, Gilbert wanted to create a five-story tower that rose from the center of the structure, topping the height of the Flatiron Building. This five-story tower was canceled by Carroll, presumably to save money, but the idea inspired the seven-story upper section of the building, topped by a mansard roof. Form and facade At the time of the West Street Building's construction, the facades of many 19th-century early skyscrapers consisted of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital. This contrasted with Gilbert's later skyscraper designs, which tended toward a "romantic tower" style. The West Street Building was one of four important Gilbert skyscrapers in the early 20th century, the others being the Second Brazer Building (1896), the Broadway–Chambers Building (1900), and the Woolworth Building (1913). The West Street Building used a reduced version of the tripartite facade layout; compared to previous commissions, the "base" was scaled down, the shaft was emphasized by tall vertical piers, and the capital was emphasized by its Gothic-style mansard roof. The West Street Building contains a base clad with granite. On the upper stories, the facade consists mostly of beige terracotta tiles manufactured by the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company. The terracotta facade is highlighted by red, green, blue, and gold tiles. To comply with the building laws of the 1900s, which required buildings over to