110 East 42nd Street facts for kids
Quick facts for kids 110 East 42nd Street |
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| Alternative names | Bowery Savings Bank Building |
| General information | |
| Type | Office |
| Architectural style | Italian Romanesque Revival style |
| Location | 110 East 42nd Street, Murray Hill, Manhattan, New York |
| Coordinates | 40°45′05″N 73°58′37″W / 40.75139°N 73.97694°W |
| Construction started | 1921 |
| Completed | 1923 |
| Owner | SL Green |
| Height | |
| Architectural | 237 ft (72 m) |
| Roof | 237 ft (72 m) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 18 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architecture firm | York and Sawyer |
| Developer | Bowery Savings Bank |
| Main contractor | |
| Designated: | September 17, 1996 |
| Reference #: | 1912, 1913 |
| References | |
| 110 East 42nd Street at Emporis | |
110 East 42nd Street, also known as the Bowery Savings Bank Building, is an 18-story office building in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is located on the south side of 42nd Street, across from Grand Central Terminal to the north, and between the Pershing Square Building to the west and the Chanin Building to the east. 110 East 42nd Street is named for the Bowery Savings Bank, who had erected the building as a new branch structure to supplement its original Bowery building.
110 East 42nd Street was designed in the Italian Romanesque Revival style by York and Sawyer, with William Louis Ayres as the partner in charge. It was erected within "Terminal City", a collection of buildings located above the underground tracks surrounding Grand Central, and makes use of real-estate air rights above the tracks. The building is located directly above the New York City Subway's Grand Central–42nd Street station.
110 East 42nd Street, as well as the adjacent Pershing Square Building, were built on the site of the Grand Union Hotel. Construction started in 1921 and was completed in 1923, and an addition was added between 1931 and 1933. 110 East 42nd Street continues to be used as a bank and office building. Its facade and lobby were made New York City designated landmarks in 1996.
Contents
Design
The building was designed in the Italian Romanesque Revival style by the firm of York & Sawyer. The design shares many elements with the Pershing Square Building directly to the west, which was also co-designed by York & Sawyer. The site is also bounded by the Chanin Building to the east, 42nd Street to the north, and 41st Street to the south.
Form
York and Sawyer's original plans for 110 East 42nd Street called for a four-story-tall banking room, topped by thirteen office floors, to extend the width of the block between 41st and 42nd Streets. A hip-roofed penthouse on top of the office floors would bring the building's height to 18 floors. The building has a frontage of 104 feet (32 m) on 42nd Street and extends 198 feet (60 m) to the back of the lot at 41st Street.
As it was not a freestanding structure, 110 East 42nd Street deviated from traditional bank building designs, including that of the original main branch at Bowery and Grand Street. Most significantly, it did not resemble a "modified Greek temple" as earlier bank buildings had. The building was instead designed in the Italian Romanesque Revival style, The Italian Romanesque design provided consistency to the facade, since the Pershing Square Building to the west was designed in a similar manner. York & Sawyer's ultimate design emphasized the juxtaposition of office and banking concerns in the building, which are stacked one above the other.
Facade
The facade is divided into three vertical sections: the base, tower, and upper stories. The facade contains elements such as arcades, and cornices with corbelling. A variety of materials and colors are used for the building's individual elements, including colonettes made of pink granite; spandrels made of green marble; and a roof with red tiling. The facade elements are also decorated with representations of figures such as "birds, beasts, fantastic mythological creatures [and] human forms".
The 42nd Street facade is largely made of Ohio sandstone. On the 42nd Street side, there are also columns and colonettes made of pink granite; tiled wall copings; and spandrels made of green marble. The 41st Street facade is made of sandstone on the first floor, and buff-colored bonded brick above it. At the bottom of both facades is a water table made of granite, which is 3 feet (0.91 m) higher on the eastern part of the building, due to the area's topography sloping downward to the east.
Base
On the four-story base facing 42nd Street to the north, there is a large round-arched entrance taking up most of the facade, with detailed archivolts running on the underside of the archway. The large ground-floor arch leads to the giant banking room inside. A short flight of stairs leads to a set of doors, above which is a large window that fills the rest of the arch opening. There are voussoirs running along the top of the arch, with a carved motif located within every other voissoir. A pair of rose windows, small circular apertures, are located at the fourth floor flanking the top of the arch. An architectural arcade with arched openings runs along the fifth floor facade.
To the west of the main archway (on the right side as seen from 42nd Street), a small arch provides access to the office tower's entrance vestibule, the elevator lobby, and the Grand Central–42nd Street subway station. The entrance contains a semicircular tympanum above the doorway, with a geometric pattern, as well as embossed surrounds on either side of the doorway. The words "The Bowery Savings Bank Building" are inscribed on top of the tympanum, and the building's address is fully spelled out on the bottom of the tympanum. Above this archway are two pairs of windows, one each at the third and fourth floors. The third floor includes two rectangular windows and the fourth floor contains two arched grilles in place of window openings.
To the east (left) is the six-story "Chapel" annex completed in 1933. The lower two floors contain a three-arched arcade with two granite columns. The rectangular third-floor windows and arched fourth-floor windows are similar to those on the west side of the facade. Above the first- and second-floor arcade, there are four carved motifs, located at even intervals, as well as an inscription "A Mutual Institution Chartered 1834 To Serve Those Who Save". There is an architectural arcade running across the 5th story facade.
The facade of the base on 41st Street, to the south, is similar in that it also contains a large archivolted arch with a set of doors below a large window. However, the doors on the 41st Street facade are located in a three-faced structure that projects slightly. Flanking the arch are three architectural bays, two to the west (left) and one to the east (right) of the arch. These bays each contain two rectangular windows on the second floor, two arched windows on the third floor, and a rose window on the fourth floor. A driveway leading to an underground parking garage is located on the first floor underneath the leftmost bay.
Tower
On the 42nd Street side above the four-story base, the 5th through 13th floors are articulated with vertical piers and window spandrels. The piers divide the facade into five architectural bays: four bays above the main banking entrance in the center, and one bay above the office-building entrance on the west (right) side. Each bay contains two windows on each floor. Horizontal cornices with corbeling are located above the 14th and 17th floors. There is an architectural arcade running across the 5th story facade, as well as another arcade running across the 15th and 16th stories. The 17th story contains round-arched window openings while the 18th story consists of four windows that each contain three panes. On the 17th floor, at the top of 110 East 42nd Street's tower section, are tiled copings. At the 42nd Street facade, a flagpole extends from the center of the tower section at the fifth floor, directly above the center of the archway.
On the 41st Street side, the facade rises nine stories from ground level, with a cornice at the top of this section. Above the ninth floor, the building contains a 22-foot (6.7 m) setback, and the tower rises behind this setback to the 17th story. The 41st Street side is also articulated with vertical piers and window spandrels. It also contains five architectural bays, with each bay containing two windows per floor.
First-floor interior
The first floor consists of three sections: an elevator vestibule on the west, a banking room on the center, and the smaller "Chapel" section to the east. The massive first-floor banking room measures 80 feet (24 m) wide and 197.5 feet (60.2 m) long with a 65-foot-tall (20 m) ceiling. It was described by The New York Times as one of the largest banking rooms in a New York City bank. The banking room utilizes marble, limestone, sandstone and bronze screens to create a space reminiscent of a basilica. The annex and banking rooms use a mixture of materials on the walls and columns: according to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, these include ashlar as well as "marble, limestone, sandstone, imitation stone, and plaster". Various other motifs also adorn the walls, ceiling, and columns.
The banking room can be entered from five places: the main 41st and 42nd Street archways to the south and north, respectively; an entrance to the office building's vestibule to the northeast; and two doorways leading to the passenger- and freight-elevator lobbies to the west. The marble tellers' counter, 50 inches (130 cm) high, is in the middle of the banking room. The floor is made of marble tile patterns, and a wooden staircase at the northeastern corner of the banking room leads to the basement. The ceiling above the banking room is supported by steel trusses that run across the vault. Six major trusses run perpendicular to the walls and are supported by twelve corbels, while smaller trusses run diagonally between alternating corbels. The ceiling is coated with six layers of materials, giving it the appearance of "minor wooden beams and coffering". Six chandeliers hang from the ceiling at the locations where the diagonal trusses cross each other.
The "Chapel" annex is located to the east of the banking room's northern section, connected via two large rectangular openings cut through the party wall on the eastern side of the banking room. The design is similar to that of the banking room, with limestone and sandstone walls. A second floor loggia overlooks the northern end of the annex's first floor, and below that is a set of double doors leading to the central arch of the arcade along 42nd Street. Two chandeliers and a painted rhombus pattern are located on the flat ceiling, while a patterned frieze runs near the top of the wall.
The space to the west of the main banking room measures 20 feet (6.1 m) wide and 197.5 feet (60.2 m) long. It includes an entrance vestibule, as well as a lobby containing passenger and freight elevators. The vestibule, located to the north and facing 42nd Street, contains a ceiling with three vaults. It includes a staircase to the New York City Subway's Grand Central–42nd Street station, serving the 4 5 6 <6>, 7 <7>, and S trains, along its western side. To the south is the elevator lobby, which contains decorative floor tiling and six painted ceiling vaults, similar in design to the main banking room. The elevator doors contain bronze panels with various embossed motifs.
History
Site
The completion of the underground Grand Central Terminal in 1913 resulted in the rapid development of the areas around Grand Central, and a corresponding increase in real-estate prices. Among these were the New York Central Building at 47th Street and Park Avenue, as well as the Grand Central Palace across 42nd Street from the present 110 East 42nd Street. By 1920, the area had become what The New York Times called "a great civic centre".
In 1913, the Dual Contracts were signed by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), two companies who operated parts of the present New York City Subway. A set of platforms at Grand Central, now serving the IRT Lexington Avenue Line (4 5 6 <6> trains), was to be built diagonally under the building site as part of the agreement. At the time, the site under the proposed station was occupied by Grand Union Hotel, which was condemned via eminent domain in February 1914. The condemnation proceedings for the hotel cost $3.5 million (equal to $68.8 million in 2021 ). To pay the station's construction cost, the Public Service Commission approved the construction of a 25-story building above the station. By May 1915, the building site had been excavated for the construction of the building. Despite the passage of the 1916 Zoning Resolution, which required architectural setbacks to provide light to the streets below, the building plans conformed with the older zoning codes, which did not require setbacks.
Though the IRT Lexington Avenue Line's 42nd Street station opened in 1918, the site above the station was not developed as planned. The Transit Commission attempted to sell the building site in May 1920 for $2.8 million (equal to $29.1 million in 2021 ), but no one placed a bid. Then in July 1920, a realty consortium headed by investor Henry Mandel offered $2.9 million for the hotel (equal to $30.1 million in 2021 ), a proposal that was accepted. The value of the land at the future building site was extremely valuable; by 1923, the Rider's Guide to New York City referred to the blocks of East 42nd Street between Park and Fifth Avenues as "Little Wall Street".
Planning and construction
The Bowery Savings Bank, then located at the Bowery and Grand Street in lower Manhattan, was among the parties who were seeking to add an uptown location, and in September 1920 its trustees unanimously agreed to look for an uptown site. The trustees soon found a site on 42nd Street, but a standalone bank building could not be built there, as it was deemed too costly. As such, the bank trustees created a building committee to start planning for the building in December 1920.
In January 1921, Mandel sold the Bowery Savings Bank the eastern half of the Grand Union Hotel site, which would be developed into an office building called 110 East 42nd Street. As per the purchase agreement between the bank and the corporation, the structures were to contain interlocking structures, including what was believed to be the city's tallest party wall separating two buildings. York and Sawyer, designers of several bank buildings in the eastern United States, had been hired to devise plans for the new Savings Bank at the site of the Grand Union Hotel. The lead architect on the project was William Louis Ayres. The plans were filed with the New York City Department of Buildings in April 1921. Excavations had started in February 1921 in advance of the plans' approval, and that June, the building committee recommended to start construction immediately. Construction on the building officially commenced that July with a groundbreaking ceremony.
By the time the new branch opened in 1923, there were 155,000 people with accounts at the Bowery Savings Bank. The bank had had seen $1.5 million in deposits (equivalent to $25,763,672 in 2022 ) "on one day recently", compared to the $2,020 deposited on the original branch's opening day in 1834 (equivalent to $59,213 in 2022 ). Just prior to 110 East 42nd's opening in June 1923, $202 million of deposits held by the Bowery Savings Bank (equal to $2.5 billion in 2021 ) was moved from the original branch to the new branch, using 14 armored cars guarded by 100 heavily armed policemen. However, the bank retained its original offices on Bowery. Upon the opening of 110 East 42nd, the branch had total deposits of $177 million (equal to $2.2 billion in 2021 ). There were 2,500 new accounts opened at the 110 East 42nd branch on the first day in office, and 33,803 new accounts in the nine months afterward, with total deposits at the 110 East 42nd branch increasing by $25 million in that time period (equal to $313.8 million in 2021 ). The presence of the new Bowery Savings Bank branch and of brokerage firms on 42nd Street bolstered its reputation as a "Little Wall Street".
Some alterations were made to the main building in 1927, including the installation of a clock, bronze display cases, and revolving doors outside the 42nd Street entrance. A six-story addition to the east, which came to be called "The Chapel", was proposed in March 1931. Louis Ayres designed the addition while Marc Eidlitz & Son, Inc. erected the structure. The Chapel annex was completed by 1933.
Later use
The fifth floor facade's marble colonettes were replaced with granite ones in 1951, and the annex's windows and entrance were redesigned in 1956. A plaque was erected outside 110 East 42nd Street in 1957, designating it as a point of interest and an unofficial "landmark". The screen above the 42nd Street archway were replaced with a glass window in 1962.
A year after the Bowery Savings Bank was acquired by H. F. Ahmanson & Co. in 1991, the building's ownership was jointly transferred to Ahmanson and a limited partnership, who owned the building as a condominium. Greenpoint Bank took over the banking spaces in 1995, after having bought many of Ahmanson's branches. The building was designated an official New York City landmark in 1996. SL Green bought the building in March 1998 and subsequently renovated the lobby as well as replaced the elevators. The ground-floor banking room was converted to a Cipriani restaurant and upscale event space, with Cipriani finalizing the deal for the new location in January 1999. At the same time, with the renovation and revival of Grand Central in the late 1990s, large tenants began occupying 110 East 42nd's office space.
The areas immediately surrounding Grand Central, including 110 East 42nd, had 1.8 million square feet (170,000 m2) of air rights above the terminal and its rail yards. This allowed for the construction of developments with that maximum floor area above Grand Central. In 2014, some of 110 East 42nd's unused air rights were passed to One Vanderbilt, a 1,401-foot-tall (427 m) skyscraper being built a block to the west.
Images for kids
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Banking room interior, seen in a 1923 magazine article
See also
In Spanish: 110 East 42nd Street para niños
