120 Wall Street facts for kids
Quick facts for kids 120 Wall Street |
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as seen from the East River
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| General information | |
| Architectural style | Wedding-cake |
| Location | Wall Street |
| Address | 120 Wall Street |
| Town or city | New York City |
| Country | United States |
| Current tenants | Concepts of Independence Droga5 Guttmacher Institute INROADS, NYC Lucis Trust & World Goodwill National Urban League Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship The New Press United Negro College Fund |
| Opened | March 1930 |
| Renovated | 2002 |
| Cost | US$12 million (1929) |
| Owner | Silverstein Properties Inc. |
| Height | 399 ft (122 m) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 34 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Ely Jacques Kahn |
| Architecture firm | Buchman & Kahn |
120 Wall Street is a tall building, called a skyscraper, located in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It was finished in 1930. The building stands 399 feet (122 meters) tall and has 34 floors. It is found on the eastern side of Wall Street, also touching Pine Street and South Street. The main architect who designed it was Ely Jacques Kahn from the firm Buchman & Kahn.
Contents
Building History: From Idea to Today
How 120 Wall Street Was Built
In February 1929, a company called Greenmal Holding Corporation announced they had money to build this skyscraper. The project was expected to cost about $12 million. The building's foundation was very strong, resting on 51 deep supports called caissons.
Designed by Buchman & Kahn, the building was planned to cover a large area of 23,000 square feet (2,137 square meters). T. Greenberg and Malzmal bought the land in 1928 from the American Sugar Company.
Opening and Early Years
The building officially opened its doors in March 1930. The first big company to rent space there was the American Sugar Refining Company.
A few years later, in 1933, the building faced financial trouble. The New York Life Insurance Company took over the building because of unpaid loans. This happened after a lawsuit was filed in 1932 due to interest payments that were not made.
For many years, 120 Wall Street was the only major tall building along the downtown waterfront of the East River. This changed after the 1970s when many more buildings were constructed.
New Owners and Special Purpose
Since 1980, the building has been owned by the 120 Wall Company, LLC. This company is connected to Silverstein Properties Inc., who bought the building for about $12 million.
In the early 1990s, Silverstein Properties worked with New York City to give 120 Wall Street a special title: New York City's first "Association Center." This means the building offers affordable office space. Because of this, it has attracted more than 35 national non-profit organizations.
These groups include The New Press, AFS-USA, Inc., the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, and the world headquarters of the National Urban League. Other groups like the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and The United Negro College Fund also have offices here.
Building Design: "Wedding-Cake" Style
The design of 120 Wall Street is known as "wedding-cake" architecture. This style means the building gets narrower as it goes up, like layers on a cake. This is also called a "setback" skyscraper, where parts of the building step back from the street.
The building has three main tiered sections. These setbacks start from a large 16-story base. At street level, the first five stories have a base made of limestone. Red-granite panels frame the wide windows on these lower floors.
In total, the building has 615,000 square feet (57,134 square meters) of space.
See also
In Spanish: 120 Wall Street para niños
