250 Vesey Street

 office building, bank, skyscraper, 1986_construction, postmodern (architecture)

500-foot, 34-story postmodern office building completed in 1986. Designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates, 250 Vesey Street, formerly Four World Financial Center, is a part of the Brookfield Place complex in Lower Manhattan, which housed the international headquarters of Merrill Lynch. The building was formerly home to the Merrill Lynch trading floor, which is now located in the Bank of America Tower at Bryant Park.

The building has a 4-story lower base, with a glassy, outward curving entry intersection the straight lines of the walls. This base also extends to connect 250 and 200 Vesey Street with a concourse lined with retail space. There are cascading setbacks at varying floor levels of each façade. The tower is clad in tan-grey granite and square punched windows of blue tinted glass. As the building rises and steps back, the windows grow larger at each level, increasing the ratio of glass to granite. It is crowned by a copper ziggurat rooftop (a terraced, flat pyramid with successively receding levels).

The building is located in the heart of the Financial District. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the building sustained major damage to its roof, however the general damage to the building was nowhere near as great as the other three towers. The structure was renamed 250 Vesey Street when the rest of the complex became Brookfield Place in 2014. Bank of America Merrill Lynch exited shortly afterwards.