Emigrant Savings Bank Building

 office building, bank

360-foot, 28-story International-style office building completed in 1969. Designed by Emery Roth & Sons for the Emigrant Savings Bank (the oldest savings bank in New York City, founded in 1850), the building is clad in black metal and glass. The north facade is set back from the building line, creating a small plaza in front; the plaza includes a few planters boxes and a bronze statue of a kneeling fireman (see separate tag).

The north facade has a single large setback above the 10th floor, with thin mullions dividing window panes (19 panes across each floor) in the curtain wall. The tall ground floor is framed in brown granite, and has the main building entrance at the right, under a metal canopy, next to a freight entrance at the far right end, and a glass wall on the left, with glass doors opening onto the banking hall. Above, the 5th bay from the west has recessed open spaces in place of windows at each floor, divided by glass spandrels. These continue on the set-back upper portion of the tower, ending below the top two floors. To the left, there are narrower open spaces on the upper tower framing the panes of the six eastern bays up to the 15th floor, and across the 12 eastern bays at the top two floors.

The south facade on 42nd Street has two main setbacks. Like the north facade, the extreme edges of the facade are framed in brown granite, as is the tall ground floor, with large windows. The 2nd-5th floors have narrower windows and wider, more projecting vertical fins than the upper facades. The first setback is above the 5th floor, and the second setback is above the 13th floor. The top two floors have narrow openings at the edges of the windows like on the north facade, at the 12 eastern bays. The west elevation is a blank wall of dark-brown brick, projecting slightly further to the west at the north end.