Levy, E.S., Building
a.k.a. National Hotel Building
2221-2225 Market St., Galveston, TXThe 1896 E. S. Levy building is named for the founder of an early Galveston business, E. S. Levy & Co., also known as Levy's, that operated continuously in the city until 1979. Architect Charles W. Bulger designed the transitional style building and incorporated the ground floor cast iron facade of the 1871 Tremont Opera House that previously stood on this site. The Levy building was Galveston's first professional office building and its tenants included doctors, lawyers and other professionals as well as the U.S. Weather Service office at the time of the 1900 Great Storm. The E. S. Levy building is an addition to the Multiple Resource Listing of the Historic Resources of Galveston Central Business District/Downtown (NR 1984). The building meets Criterion A, significant at the local level, in the Area of Commerce as the city's first professional office buildings and demonstrated the growth of the city and the retail trade in the late nineteenth century. It meets Criterion C in the Area of Architecture, also significant at the local level, as an excellent example of turn-of-the-century commercial architecture in Galveston and the first large commercial commission of architect Charles W. Bulger.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.