120 Wall Street (New York City, New York)

 office building, skyscraper, Art Deco (architecture), 1931_construction

399-foot, 34-story Art-Deco office building completed in 1931. Designed by Buchman & Kahn with decoration by Rambusch Studios, it was the only major high-rise building on the East River downtown waterfront for many years until the early-1970s construction boom. The tower is tiered on three sides, forming the "wedding-cake" architecture familiar to New York due to zoning regulations. The building has a 5-story limestone base. On the tall ground floor, piers divide the wider facade along South Street into eleven bays, on Wall Street into five bays, and on the northeast side, into three wide bays on the left, with two on the right, and a slightly narrower middle bay with a secondary entrance. The main entrance on Wall Street is in the middle bay, with brass doors topped by a polished brass grille in Art-Deco patterns, all framed by stone, extending to the 2nd floor. The entrance on South Street is in the 4th bay from the right, with a shorter brass grille above the doors, and a stone enframement ending below the 2nd floor. The bays of the next three floors are divided into three windows on the South Street facade, separated by narrow pilasters. On Wall Street, the three center bays have three windows each, while the two outer bays have four. On the opposite facade, each bay has three windows, except for the bay above the entrance, which is recessed. On the top floor of the base, each bay has two wider-spaced windows, except for the two outer bays on Wall Street, which have three.

The upper floors are clad in light-grey brick, with evenly spaced windows between the piers, rising vertically up to the 16th floor. The spandrels in the center of each facade have textured brick. The narrow recessed bay on the northeast facade continues up to the 16th floor as well. Above, there are small setbacks on the southwest and northeast sides at the 18th, 21st, 23rd, 26th, 28th, 31st & 33rd floors. Additional narrow setbacks occur at various areas of the South Street elevation. Each setback is capped by a band of white brick. At the top the building is crowned by a limestone cap, with projecting vertical bands on each facade.

120 Wall Street has attracted more than 36 of the finest national not-for-profit organizations, including the world headquarters locations of the National Urban League, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, The United Negro College Fund, and the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

usmodernist.org/AMAR/AMAR-1931-03.pdf