Cyrus Lazelle Warner Eidlitz was the son of Leopold Eidlitz [q. vi] and Harriet Amanda Warner Eidlitz, daughter of an architect and of Massachusetts colonial stock.
He was born in the house at the foot of West Eighty-sixth St. , New York City, which his father had built several years before.
Almost from his birth the son was destined for the profession of architecture and at the age of twelve was sent abroad for his education. After three years of school in Geneva, he entered the Royal Polytechnic School in Stuttgart, and in 1871 returned to New York and entered his father’s office as a draftsman.
His first independent work was the rebuilding in 1878 of St. Peter’s Church in Westchester, a church originally built by the elder Eidlitz, which had been badly damaged by fire. This was followed by a railway station in Detroit, and this in turn by the important Dearborn Station in Chicago, completed in 1885. In 1884 Cyrus Eidlitz was successful in a competition for the building of the Buffalo Library, which when completed at once gave him rank as one of the leading American architects. The plan was complicated by the fact that it was necessary to accommodate a library, an art gallery, and the collections of a historical society on a site which was of extreme irregularity, forming a rightangled triangle truncated at the apex which was also the most conspicuous part. The building, of a more or less orthodox German Romanesque, is a splendid solution of unpromising conditions of site and use. Of about the same date were the Telephone buildings in Cortlandt and Broad Streets ; followed by the Western Electric Building in Greenwich St. , the Fidelity and Casualty Building in Cedar, the Racquet Club in Forty- third St. , the Bank for Savings on Fourth Ave. at Twenty-second, and the building for the Bar Association in Forty-fourth running to Forty- third St. , all in New York City. The Western Electric Building was an example of a factory and showed that such a structure might be ornamental as well as useful. The Fidelity Building, which reached upward to the extent of ten full stories, was the first “skyscraper” which Eidlitz was called upon to design, his previous efforts having been confined to constructions of less elevation. The pioneers in this class of building had established as an axiom that the edifice must have a powerful base, a plain shaft and a rich crown. This principle was followed by Eidlitz in the design for the Townsend Building at the northwest corner of Broadway and Twenty-sixth Sts. Each of his new designs showed advancement in his art over those preceding. The group of three which comprised the Racquet Club, the Bank for Savings, and the Bar Association were the most important and interesting of his career up to the time of their construction. In the case of the Racquet Club the conditions gave a frontage of 142 feet and that the playing courts at the top of the building should be bounded by solid walls without windows on the front. The design centered in an arcade of five openings running through the second and third stories and dominating the whole front, with great depth to the piers of the arcade, leaving an impression of nobility and power. The Bank for Savings is one of the solidest as well as one of the most dignified in New York, and at the time of its erection was spoken of as one of the most “popular” buildings of the time and is still one of the most classical buildings to be found in New York. The most noteworthy structure designed by Eidlitz was the New York Times Building, constructed in the narrow triangle between Broadway and Seventh Ave. , and Forty-second and Fortythird Sts. , in New York City. There the manifold requirements of a structure heavy enough for the great presses, and providing sufficient office space for rental in addition to what was needed for the editorial and mechanical staffs of the great newspaper, were complicated by the many additional stories of the tower dominating Broadway and adding so greatly to the advertising value of the site for its purpose. This rich and stately building was eminently successful and still stands a monument to the professional skill of the architect who designed it.
On May 23, 1877, he married Jennie Turner Dudley, a descendant of Governor Thomas Dudley of Massachusetts.
