Turn around and look behind.  Alongside the pedestrian crosswalk by which you crossed the street rises the impressive skyscraper, the Woolworth building. The building was completed in 1913 commissioned by F. W. Woolworth. Perhaps the person of Frank Woolworth is even more impressive than the building.  He was a "self made man" as they say.  The unique feature of his personality is that his deficiency - an intense bashfulness - was turned into an advantage.  This is what happened.  Woolworth was born and grew up in the country but at age 21 he decided that country life was not for him and he wanted something bigger.  From his parent's home he went to the small town of Watertown, New York and found work as a salesman in a small store.  But unfortunately, Frank was completely inappropriate for the job of a salesman.  He was very bashful, diffident and often severely stuttered.  The owner of the store decided one day to let him go.  But he decided to give Frank one last chance and entrusted to him the charge to work alone in the store all day. Depending on the outcome the owner would decide to allow him to continue working at the store or not.  Frank did not lose courage.  On that day he hung all the goods a small tag with the minimal price of the object.  All the goods that were lying in the warehouse he placed in the store window and placed them with the price of 5 cents.  In several hours all the goods had been purchased.  What is surprising about this you ask?  Today clearance sales occur everywhere.But at that time in all stores, the salesmen showed merchandise at the request of the client and told the client the price depending on the appearance and conduct of the client.  In addition to that, the salesman was supposed to praise the merchandise, but for the bashful Frank that did not work.  He had found a way to solve the assignment given to him by his boss.By this Frank Woolworth brought about a revolution in merchandising.  You will probably be interested to know that it was precisely Frank Woolworth who introduced the practice of decorating stores for Christmas.  Thanks to this man, the process of buying merchandise was turned into what we now call shopping in the generally accepted sense.Frank himself became very wealthy.  And when he had made a large fortune, he decided on an ambitious undertaking - to build a building and give it his name. As an extraordinary person, he wanted the building to be special and the highest building in the world.As you can see, this skyscraper is faced externally with a novelty of that time - ceramic terra-cotta cream colored tiles.  The three lower floors are finished in granite and sandstone.  In the main vestibule the walls are finished in Greek marble, on the second floor the arcades of the gallery  are finished in bronze. Two years after its construction at the Panama-Pacific Exhibition the skyscraper received the gold medal as the "most beautiful building built for a commercial purpose." Woolworth had his office built on the 28th floor.  The office was finished in green marble from Northern Italy.  In the center of the office stood a large writing table covered in green leather.After the death of the millionaire, his empire collapsed, but the beautiful building still stands and reminds us of the great and fortunate man who "made himself."Photo Woolworth Building by Phil Roeder is licensed under CC BY 2.0