25. American Stock Exchange

Location: 86 Trinity Place
Built: 1921
Architect: Starrett & Van Vleck
National Register Number: 78001867
Listed: June 2, 1978
Visited: September 28th, 2007



So, last Friday, I'm taking pictures of the Old Morgan Guaranty Building and this German family approaches me. "Do you know where the stock exchange is?" I tell them, well, there are actually two exchanges. The New York Stock Exchange is right around the corner -- I hold my cupped hand down Wall Street -- but the American Stock Exchange is down the street past the church. But I hastened to add that it was in all likelihood the NYSE they wanted to see. Its market value is many, many times greater, the NYSE's grand Greek temple looks gets to be on all the postcards and used in television stock footage to symbolize "Wall Street," while Trinity Church prevents the ASE's bland Art Deco façade from even being visible in America's primary financial district. To me, the most interesting thing about the building is that for the longest time, the ASE didn't even need a building, persisting as an outdoor enterprise from 1842 to 1921. This would be unfathomable today -- probably in even the most basketcase of economies, exchanges rely on banks of indoor computers to do their dirty work.

22. Building at 21 West Street

AKA: 21-23 West Street; 11-21 Morris Street; 34-38 Washington Street; Le Rivage
Location: 21 West Street
Built: 1929-1931
Architects: Starrett & Van Vleck
National Register Number: 99000316
Listed: March 12, 1999
Visited: August 31, 2007



Another commercial concern turned condo, this building generates some excitement from its Art Deco brickwork, an assemblage of orange, red, and purple in rhythmic and undulating patterns that the eye doesn't notice unless it's close, and from its asymmetrical massing that, frankly, has been repeated ad nauseum in many dullard mid-century apartment buildings. So I am torn between declaring it ordinary and lovable. What a neighborhood, though. While park access is a walk away, 21 West Street's squeezed between the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and West Side Highway, and a few blocks away from Ground Zero; I can't help but look at those high floors and think how alienated they must feel from the rest of the city, what lonely views they must offer.