41b. Wall Street Historic District

Location: Roughly bounded by Cedar Street, Maiden Lane, Pearl Street, Bridge Street, South William Street, Greenwich Street, and Trinity Place.
Built: N/A
Architect: N/A
National Register Number: 07000063
Listed: February 2, 2007
Visited: December 30, 2007



One Chase Manhattan Plaza (Skidmore, Owens & Merrill, 1960) is considered another modernist masterwork, but I have less affection for it: only seven years older, it feels dated in a way its neighbor, the Marine Midland Bank Building, doesn't. Maybe it's because it's clad in bright 'n' shiny aluminum rather than the eternally "cool" negation of black. (Did New York City have black or near-black buildings before the Seagram Building?)



What I like, though, is the plaza itself: its Dubuffet mutant mushrooms and the stage-like views of The Manhattan Company Building and Louise Nevelson Plaza.