32. National City Bank
AKA: Regent Wall Street Hotel; First National City Bank; Merchants' Exchange
Location: 55 Wall Street
Built: 1836-1841
Architects: Isiah Rogers; McKim, Mead & White (1907 addition)
National Register Number: 78001875
Listed: June 2, 1978
Visited: September 28 and October 15, 2007
First it was the Merchants' Exchange. Replacing a building destroyed in the Great Fire of 1835, it was a stern Classical Revival building with an colonnade of twelve Ionic columns (with another four behind at the recessed entrance), each fashioned from a single block of stone. After the exchange failed, it was home to the New York Stock Exchange for twelve years; then it became the Customs House before the Customs House. Then it was bought by the National City Bank. Crazily, they hired McKim, Mead & White to add four more stories to the three-story building, including a Corinthian colonnade perfectly aligned with the colonnade below. Eventually the National City Bank became Citigroup, ranked by the most recent Forbes Global 2000 as the biggest company in the whole wide world. (You have to wonder if buildings connected to Wal-Mart, Apple, Microsoft, or the Home Depot will ever get landmarked. Yeah, probably.)
The building is now dedicated to...condos. Surprised? Well, OK, the website for 55 Wall Street actually calls them "residences," something I'm fine with since "condo" has become such a tainted word. The residence-condo-whatevers themselves look dandy, but in a puzzling lapse, the opening animations feature posed club scenes with such past-peak personalities as cell-phone-throwing model Naomi Campbell, and a man whose face has been so ruined by plastic surgery its texture has been likened to dog food, Mickey Rourke. There is also a ballroom where a banking hall used to be; from the looks of it, an intoxicating venue, prompting dreams of champagne-fueled waltzing in the first flush moments of a new year. But when I write this, a website promoting an subscription-only concert series for the well-off plays Lenny Kravtiz in loop, and like Campbell and Rourke, Kravitz is a picture of nightlife glamor at least a decade stale.
Location: 55 Wall Street
Built: 1836-1841
Architects: Isiah Rogers; McKim, Mead & White (1907 addition)
National Register Number: 78001875
Listed: June 2, 1978
Visited: September 28 and October 15, 2007
First it was the Merchants' Exchange. Replacing a building destroyed in the Great Fire of 1835, it was a stern Classical Revival building with an colonnade of twelve Ionic columns (with another four behind at the recessed entrance), each fashioned from a single block of stone. After the exchange failed, it was home to the New York Stock Exchange for twelve years; then it became the Customs House before the Customs House. Then it was bought by the National City Bank. Crazily, they hired McKim, Mead & White to add four more stories to the three-story building, including a Corinthian colonnade perfectly aligned with the colonnade below. Eventually the National City Bank became Citigroup, ranked by the most recent Forbes Global 2000 as the biggest company in the whole wide world. (You have to wonder if buildings connected to Wal-Mart, Apple, Microsoft, or the Home Depot will ever get landmarked. Yeah, probably.)
The building is now dedicated to...condos. Surprised? Well, OK, the website for 55 Wall Street actually calls them "residences," something I'm fine with since "condo" has become such a tainted word. The residence-condo-whatevers themselves look dandy, but in a puzzling lapse, the opening animations feature posed club scenes with such past-peak personalities as cell-phone-throwing model Naomi Campbell, and a man whose face has been so ruined by plastic surgery its texture has been likened to dog food, Mickey Rourke. There is also a ballroom where a banking hall used to be; from the looks of it, an intoxicating venue, prompting dreams of champagne-fueled waltzing in the first flush moments of a new year. But when I write this, a website promoting an subscription-only concert series for the well-off plays Lenny Kravtiz in loop, and like Campbell and Rourke, Kravitz is a picture of nightlife glamor at least a decade stale.
Labels: Bank, Financial District, Isiah Rogers, McKim Mead and White
posted by Michael at
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