Healey Building

The Healey Building, at 57 Forsyth Street NW, in the Fairlie-Poplar district of Atlanta, was the last major "skyscraper" built during the first great burst of multi-story commercial construction preceding World War I. In fact, it was World War I, which led to the alteration of the original design, which called for twin towers connected by a rotunda. Only the west tower and rotunda were constructed before World War I broke out. The death in 1920 of William Healey forestalled continuation of the project after the war. According to Dr. Elizabeth Lyon in her National Register of Historic Places nomination, "The Healey Building has an elegance and high shouldered dignity which make it outstanding among its contemporaries." Those contemporaries include the Chandler, the Flatiron and Hurt Buildings among others. Although certainly distinctive for its physical appearance and location, the Healey Building is also associated with significant individuals in Atlanta history. Thomas G. Healey and his son William T. Healey were political and business leaders in the city - in the case of Thomas, dating back to pre-Civil War times. Their contributions to Atlanta's architectural history as contractors and businessmen are numerous and significant. In addition to the Healeys, the architects Thomas Morgan, John Dillon, and Walter T. Downing have left an important body of works as monuments to their skill and abilities.Born in 1818, Thomas G. Healey moved to Savannah, Ga. in 1846, from Connecticut. A few years later, he was in Atlanta working in the brick-making business and as builder/contractor in partnership with Maxwell Berry. Healey and Berry were responsible for a number of Atlanta churches and government buildings prior to the war, including the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Trinity Methodist Church, First Presbyterian Church, and the United States Custom House (later City Hall). Following the destruction of the war, Healey was in the perfect business for the construction boom of the late 1800s, which rebuilt Atlanta. As his wealth accumulated, T. G. Healey became active in politics and other business ventures. One investment was in land, including the northwest corner of Marietta and Peachtree Streets where he built the first Healey Building. This location was the place where Atlanta's first elections were held in 1848 and where T. G. Healey's grandsons (William and Oliver) built the William-Oliver Building in 1930. From 1877 to 1882, Healey was president of the Atlanta Gas Light Company. In the 1880s, he was president of the West End and Atlanta Street Railroad Company, on the Executive Committee of the 1881 International Cotton Exhibition, and a Director of Joel Hurt's Atlanta Home Insurance Company (of which he was a purchaser of $5,000 in original stock). Politically, he was city alderman- at-large (1881) and mayor pro tem (1884). By 1889, the Atlanta Constitution was estimating Healey's wealth at between $500,000 and $1,000,000 - thus making him one of the fifteen richest men in the city. During this period, William T. Healey joined his father in his many business ventures, which still included brick making and real estate development. Among their joint enterprises were the Atlanta Car Works streetcar line (1892) and the development of a mineral water property, Austell Lithia Springs. After Thomas Healey's death in 1897, William carried on the family businesses, which came to include the new Healey Building of 1914. Excavations took most of 1913 and the project became known as "Healey's Hole," with seventy (seven feet square) wells filled with concrete reaching a depth of sixty feet.