Bankers Trust Company Building (New York City, New York)

538-foot, 29-story Classical-revival office building completed in 1912. Designed by Trowbridge & Livingston for the Bankers Trust Company, its distinctive, stepped-pyramidal roof, is one of the features that defines the lower Manhattan skyline. It also featured tiling by Rafael Guastavino during alterations in 1942.

The original, tower portion of the building is at the corner of Nassau and Wall Streets, clad in light-grey granite. The highly decorative base was derived from the Ionic order of the Erechtheum in Athens, with a colonnade standing on a 1 1/2-story stylobate, of massive granite blocks, that is crowned by a projecting frieze with a Greek fret. The colonnades are flanked by heavy corner piers with paired pilasters. At the 3rd floor where the banking room windows were shortened in the 1930s, paired windows with transoms and aluminum spandrel panels of that period survive. The facades of the tower portion are organized into five major bays, each containing a pair of windows. At the center of the Wall Street facade, two rectangular openings lead to a recessed entry porch, with granite walls and polished bronze and glass doors.

A transitional 6th floor is marked by a band course. The upper walls of the midsection are faced in a soft, buff-colored granite. The piers are treated as unbroken verticals which project slightly beyond the wall plane and have chamfered edges. The corner piers are channeled to create a paneled effect. The windows are treated as flat arches set off by scored stonework. A projecting band course decorated by a wave molding and stylized medallions incorporating triglyphs and guttae that extend from the 26th floor to the 27th floor create a transition to the elaborately decorated top stories.

The top section of the building is articulated on all four sides by colonnades of compound Ionic orders set between massive corner piers. On the north, south, and east sides of the building the 27th, 28th & 29th-story walls are set back from the colonnades. Treated as oriels, they still retain their green metal (probably copper) facings and original fenestration. Green metal railings (presumably bronze) are set between the columns at the 27th floor. On all four sides of the building the thirtieth story is pierced by regularly spaced rectangular windows set off by an architrave and the building's crowning cornice. The 31st story is treated as a attic story crested with anthemia and corner finials which act as posts for the metal pipe railings that extend around the edge of the setback 32nd story where the window openings contain French doors topped by transoms. The 32nd floor is topped by capped by a molded cornice which serves as the base for the building's crowning pyramid.

The prominent 7-level stepped pyramid atop the Bankers Trust Building, which housed record rooms and storage space, said to be modeled on the tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus (355 - 350 BC), quickly became a landmark as well as the bank's registered trademark. The windowless pyramid is constructed of granite blocks, and housed record rooms and storage spaces as well as the building's mechanical equipment including the main smoke stack which vented through openings in the apex of the pyramid.

A lower 25-story, L-shaped addition, which wraps around the original portion, was built in 1933, designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon. On Nassau Street, it projects 16 feet beyond the tower. The Wall Street elevation has lower setbacks, and is closer in design to the original tower than the Nassau Street elevation. On Wall Street, the 4-story base matches the base of the original tower with a high basement and a 3-story colonnade above dividing the facade into three bays, each with a pair of windows. The east bay has the building's main entrance. The upper floors have buff-colored limestone cladding and grey aluminum window trim and spandrel panels. The Nassau and Pine Street elevations are less dependent on the design of the original tower. They are organized as a 2-story base and 23-story upper section. The Nassau Street facade is divided into five bays by heavy piers, the Pine Street facade in to eleven bays. The major piers of the base are slightly rounded, with bands and incised decorations; the narrower piers are fluted. The Nassau Street entrance porch is adorned with a stylized eagle and a decorative bronze gate.

The building was also occupied by the White & Case law firm until they relocated in the 2000's. They had interiors designed by Theo. Hofstatter & Co.

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 office buildingskyscraperNeoclassical (architecture)1912_construction