40 Wall Street (New York City, New York)

 office building, bank, skyscraper, Art Deco (architecture), 1930_construction

927-foot, 71-story Art-Deco office building completed in 1930. Designed by H. Craig Severance, Yasuo Matsui, and Shreve & Lamb for the Bank of Manhattan Trust Company, it is located on an L-shaped lot, with facades on Wall and Pine Streets. The site slopes, so the Pine Street entrance is one story higher than the Wall Street entrance.

When completed, it surpassed the Woolworth building to become the tallest building in the world. About two weeks later, the Chrysler building surpassed it. It is still the tallest mid-block building in the world, according to Real Estate Weekly. The limestone-clad base of the steel-framed 40 Wall Street occupies almost its entire L-shaped lot and rises through a midsection with a series of setbacks to a tower, clad in buff brick and ornamented with terra-cotta.

On Wall Street, the base has a 6-story limestone colonnade with pilasters with stylized neo-classical ornament, surmounted by a story with rectangular windows and roundels. On Pine Street, the lowest six floors have a colonnade similar to that on Wall Street. The ground story was altered in 1961-63 by Carson, Lundin & Shaw when a new granite veneer was applied, with entrances with black marble "colonial" broken-pedimented surrounds at both ends.

The 8th-35th floors make up the midsection. Each floor is articulated with darker buff brick spandrel panels. The Wall Street facade is symmetrical and articulated with end pavilions on the lower stories; there is a 1-story connection on the 8th floor. Setbacks (with abstract geometric ornamental terra-cotta and limestone coping) occur at the tops of the 17th, 19th, 21st, 26th, 33rd, and 35th stories. The Pine Street facade is articulated with pavilions on the lower stories and is asymmetrical due to the length of the west pavilion; there is a 1-story connection on the 8th story. Setbacks (with abstract geometric ornamental terra-cotta and limestone coping) occur at the tops of the 12th, 19th, 23rd, 26th, 28th, and 29th floors. The east elevation rises above the adjacent building without setbacks until the 35th floor.

The lower stories of the tower are articulated with brick spandrel panels. The top eleven stories are differently ornamented, with setbacks: six stories with geometric ornamental terra-cotta spandrel panels and ornamental corner treatment; the three stories above these with stylized terra-cotta piers, and the two top stories of dark brown brick with a diamond pattern and stylized "gothic" central "wall dormers" that rise two stories into the roof. Above the 36th floor on the north facade the spandrels appear to have been painted, and the piers are pierced by louvers. The 7-story pyramidal roof (originally covered with lead-coated copper), with a stylized corbeled cornice, is pierced by windows and capped by a 2-story spire with a crystal ball and flagpole. It is painted a turquoise color to simulate oxidized copper.

After the Bank merged with Chase National Bank in 1955 to form Chase Manhattan Bank, and a new headquarters was constructed across Pine Street in 1960, the base of the Manhattan Company Building was occupied by Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co. as its downtown headquarters for thirty years. The majority of office tenants in the building (above the base) over the years have been attorneys, investment bankers, brokers, and real estate agents. In 1995, Donald Trump purchased 40 Wall Street and completed millions of dollars in renovations by Der Scutt. He had hoped to make it half-residential/half-commercial, but the building remains entirely commercial. Trump attempted to sell the building in 2003, but there were no takers that could match his asking price of $400 million. In 2011, the largest Duane Reade ever built (22,000 square feet) opened inside.

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40 Wall Street
New York, NY 10005
www.40wallstreet.com/