120 Liberty Street

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13-story Romanesque-revival residential building completed in 1897 as an office building. Designed by Oswald Wirz, it was earlier known as the Foundation Building and the Beard Building. Now containing apartments, the residential entrance is on the Cedar Street side. The facade here is clad in orange terra-cotta above a high stone water table. The ground floor is capped by a cornice with ornately carved modillions. The entrance is slightly recessed beneath a round-arch framed by intricate foliate carvings, with the upper part of the doorway flanked by a trio of short stone columns on each side supporting the arch.

Above is a 2-story lower midsection, with four wide orange terra-cotta piers and one narrower pier in the center. The windows of the two floors are recessed, and separated in each bay by a green terra-cotta spandrel with foliate carvings. The outer bays have double windows, and the inner bays have triple windows. The piers have ornate capitals at the top of the 3rd floor, supporting another cornice with the same ornate modillions as seen above the ground floor. The four wide piers continue up the upper mid-section to the 10th floor, while the center two bays are further divided into four bays of single windows by narrow piers. These windows are all also recessed, and have carved orange terra-cotta lintels. The capitols of the piers at the top of this section have different, more projecting carvings, and the windows at the top floor of this section have shallow arches. A double cornice separates the crown, which has an arcade of round-arched windows on its lower floor, and square-headed windows on the upper floor, with a modillioned cornice acting as a sill course. Above is an elaborate roof cornice.

The Liberty Street elevation has a modernized ground floor, although the remnants of the former round-arched entrance can be seen behind the covering. Also still extant is the corner over the ground floor, although the fancy modillions are missing from the western bay. The upper floors mirror almost exactly the Cedar Street side, except for lower midsection piers are painted beige. The western elevation is clad in brown brick, with a light court inset in the center. The side walls of the light court are clad in white brick. Mostly regular columns of square-headed windows pierce the walls of this facade. The ground floor is now occupied by the 9/11 Tribute Center, with 23 apartment units on the upper floors.