35. Bank of New York Building
AKA: Bank of New York & Trust Company Building
Location: 48 Wall Street
Built: 1928
Architect: Benjamin Wistar Morris
National Register Number: 03000847
Listed: August 28, 2003
Visited: September 28 and October 15, 2007
The Bank of New York has historical bragging rights that other, much bigger American banks do not. Not only is it the oldest American bank, it was founded in 1784 by actual Founding Father (not to mention ten-dollar bill cover model and Aaron Burr victim) Alexander Hamilton.
Save for a few brief moves to Greenwich Village on account of yellow fever, the bank stubbornly sat on the corner of Wall and William in form or another for two hundred years. King's Handbook of New York City 1892 has an engraving of the first bank on the site, a small Federal-style mansion with fantastically elongated windows. Calvert Vaux designed its replacement just a few years before the collaboration Frederick Law Olmsted that produced Central Park. King's book has a photo of it, some years after two floors were added: seven stories of brick, brownstone, and mansard roof that looks modest only in comparison to what the site -- and all of Wall Street -- would eventually become.
As if to admit Vaux's building amounted to insufficient ancestor worship, the replacement for Vaux's building marked a return to the architectural styles of America's birth. Both times I've photographed the building for this blog, the Federal-style lantern that's the building's most striking feature, was covered in black tarp, so you'll have to head on out to emporis.com or greatgridlock.net for a photo. It is not unlovable, but it strikes me as an oddball extravagance. The first time I really noticed the building, back in 2002 or so, I was hit with the feeling that the lantern was grossly inappropriate for a skyscraper. It's the 1920s, buildings are being built with new kinds of technologies, and yet architects are still finishing them with details derived from the ancients. No wonder modernist glass boxes were so exciting, at least for a time.
The Bank of New York finally severed its historical connection to the spot when the acquisition of Irving Trust allowed a move to One Wall Street. If a BONY employee is lucky enough to have a window office on the west side of One Wall, they can spend their idle moments looking over Trinity Church and its graveyard, the final resting place of Alexander Hamilton.
If you're keeping track of such things (and I know you are): for the umpteenth time, apartments. (And soon, a museum.)
Location: 48 Wall Street
Built: 1928
Architect: Benjamin Wistar Morris
National Register Number: 03000847
Listed: August 28, 2003
Visited: September 28 and October 15, 2007
The Bank of New York has historical bragging rights that other, much bigger American banks do not. Not only is it the oldest American bank, it was founded in 1784 by actual Founding Father (not to mention ten-dollar bill cover model and Aaron Burr victim) Alexander Hamilton.
Save for a few brief moves to Greenwich Village on account of yellow fever, the bank stubbornly sat on the corner of Wall and William in form or another for two hundred years. King's Handbook of New York City 1892 has an engraving of the first bank on the site, a small Federal-style mansion with fantastically elongated windows. Calvert Vaux designed its replacement just a few years before the collaboration Frederick Law Olmsted that produced Central Park. King's book has a photo of it, some years after two floors were added: seven stories of brick, brownstone, and mansard roof that looks modest only in comparison to what the site -- and all of Wall Street -- would eventually become.
As if to admit Vaux's building amounted to insufficient ancestor worship, the replacement for Vaux's building marked a return to the architectural styles of America's birth. Both times I've photographed the building for this blog, the Federal-style lantern that's the building's most striking feature, was covered in black tarp, so you'll have to head on out to emporis.com or greatgridlock.net for a photo. It is not unlovable, but it strikes me as an oddball extravagance. The first time I really noticed the building, back in 2002 or so, I was hit with the feeling that the lantern was grossly inappropriate for a skyscraper. It's the 1920s, buildings are being built with new kinds of technologies, and yet architects are still finishing them with details derived from the ancients. No wonder modernist glass boxes were so exciting, at least for a time.
The Bank of New York finally severed its historical connection to the spot when the acquisition of Irving Trust allowed a move to One Wall Street. If a BONY employee is lucky enough to have a window office on the west side of One Wall, they can spend their idle moments looking over Trinity Church and its graveyard, the final resting place of Alexander Hamilton.
If you're keeping track of such things (and I know you are): for the umpteenth time, apartments. (And soon, a museum.)
Labels: Bank, Benjamin Wistar Morris, Financial District, Skyscraper
posted by Michael at
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