51. Insurance Company of North America Building

A.K.A.: 99 John Street DecoLofts
Location: 99 John Street
Built: 1933
Architect: Shreve, Lamb and Harmon
National Register Number: 99001425
Listed: November 20, 1999
Visited: February 2 and 19, 2008
Additional Documentation: 99 John Street DecoLofts website



Complementing (and part of) our Financial District, Manhattan has an Insurance District. Or had one, anyway. Did you know that? I didn't. Even though I worked a few blocks away through most of the '90s, I first encountered the idea of New York's Insurance District only a few weeks ago, looking 'pon a great map of Manhattan published by real estate company Trammell Crow with the words "Insurance District" hovering over the block framed by John and Fulton, William and Gold. In hindsight, of course, I guess it makes perfect sense that there would be a clump of insurance companies adjacent to Wall Street as well as the South Street Seaport, what with boat-based business being a pretty damned risky thing. And it also makes sense that the district's coherency would rise and fall with the success of the others. Based on old New York Times articles, Etymologist Barry Popnik identifies the term's birth in the 1880's and its peak at around 1920. During the remainder of the 20th century, Manhattan's financial powers disperse throughout the tri-state area; maritime shipping loses its potency; insurance companies move, die, are purchased by larger ones. So by the time I get to know the place--defined by Emporis as between Maiden Lane and the Brooklyn Bridge--there's little business extant that identifies the place to me as related to insurance. Instead, I knew it as home to Silicon Alley. (Well, one of the Silicon Alleys.)



Even if its coherence as center for industry is diminished, the area's architectural coherence remains. The corner of John and Gold is draped in Art Deco: 100 John Street and its bold terracing; the green-tinged 80 John and its slight twist against street; 111 John and its textures. (Non-Deco buildings like 110 and 100 William add to the area's vitality rather than diminish it.) In the middle of this is the Insurance Company of North America (or "INA") Building. Dressed in stipes of limestone and windows/spandrels, it looks like a stump Empire State Building, which is appropriate, since it's by the same architects, built a few years later. It's not quite as interesting, though. How could it be? So small, so crowded, it's hard to get a sense of the whole thing from the street. Actually, none of these buildings are anything more than minor gems--but taken together, this is a forgotten little district you could root for.