55 Wall Street
55 Wall Street, formerly the National City Bank Building, is an eight-story building on Wall Street between William and Hanover streets in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The lowest three stories were completed in either 1841 or 1842 as the four-story Merchants' Exchange and designed by Isaiah Rogers in the Greek Revival style. Between 1907 and 1910, McKim, Mead & White removed the original fourth story and added five floors to create the present building. Since 2006, the banking room has functioned as an event venue called the Cipriani Wall Street, while the upper stories have been a condominium development known as the Cipriani Club Residences.
55 Wall Street's granite facade includes two stacked colonnades facing Wall Street, each with twelve columns. Inside is a cruciform banking hall with a vaulted ceiling, Corinthian columns, marble floors and walls, and an entablature around the interior. The banking hall was among the largest in the United States when it was completed. The offices of Citibank's predecessor National City Bank were in the corners of the banking hall, while the fourth through eighth floors were used as office space. The facade and part of the interior are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is listed on both the New York State Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark. It is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, listed on the NRHP.
The Merchants' Exchange building replaced a structure that had burned down in the Great New York City Fire of 1835. 55 Wall Street subsequently hosted the New York Stock Exchange, then the United States Custom House until a new Custom House building was developed on Bowling Green in the 1900s. After 55 Wall Street was expanded, it served as the headquarters of National City Bank from 1908 to 1961; Citibank continued to own the building until 1992. The upper stories operated as a hotel from 2000 to 2003. Cipriani S.A. and Steve Witkoff began converting the upper stories to condominiums in 2004, while Cipriani operated the banking room as an event venue.
Site
55 Wall Street occupies a full block bounded by Wall Street to the north, Hanover Street to the east, Exchange Place to the south, and William Street to the west. Though the building occupies an entire city block, each side is a different length due to the irregular street grid in the area. The dimensions of the building are on Wall Street, on Hanover Street, on Exchange Place, and on William Street.The building is near 48 Wall Street and 60 Wall Street to the north, the Wall and Hanover Building to the east, 20 Exchange Place to the south, and 15 Broad Street to the west. Immediately outside the building's northwestern corner is an entrance to the Wall Street station on the New York City Subway's Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line.
Architecture
55 Wall Street is eight stories tall and has a basement; it is composed of the original three-story building and a five-story addition. The original building was designed by Boston architect Isaiah Rogers in the Greek Revival style and built between 1836 and either 1841 or 1842. As constructed, the building was topped by a brick dome rising above ground level. The dome was wide and rose above the main exchange floor. It was supported by "eight pilasters of fine variegated Italian marble". The original domed structure was the most prominent part of the Lower Manhattan skyline in the early 19th century.Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White, along with William S. Richardson, was hired to enlarge the building between 1907 and 1910. The firm had previously designed commercial buildings, including numerous banks. Their work included removing the dome and top story; adding five floors and a second colonnade; and redesigning the exchange floor into a main banking floor. A net total of four stories were added. The first floor was also lowered slightly to resemble a basement and the actual basement was relabeled as a sub-basement.
Facade
The facade is composed of ashlar granite masonry. The northern and eastern facades are composed of thirteen vertical architectural bays, while the William Street side has ten bays and the Exchange Place side has eight bays. Most of the bays contain one window on each floor. There is an entrance for office tenants at 53 Wall Street, in the western portion of the building. The central entrance at 55 Wall Street connects with the former banking room.A cornice and various entablatures wrap around the entire facade. Two colonnades face Wall Street, but the other three facades on William Street, Exchange Place, and Hanover Street have no colonnades. Instead, these sides contain pilasters between each bay on the second and third stories, except for the center bay, which is a large arched window. When McKim, Mead & White expanded the building, the pilasters were extended to the fourth through seventh stories of these facades.
Colonnades
The facade of the original structure featured twelve massive Ionic columns on Wall Street, each a single block of granite from Quincy, Massachusetts. These columns are each tall and measure in diameter. Recessed behind this colonnade is a porch, as well as rectangular brass-framed window openings on the second and third stories. In the center of the second floor is a revolving door and two single doors beneath a brass double transom. The facade was originally topped by a frieze, according to lithographs published during the 19th century. The center of the frieze contained the inscription "Erected MDCCCXXXVIII" and was flanked by carved figures in classical robes. Above the center of the frieze was a sculpture of a woman holding a staff and accompanied by motifs of a cornucopia, an eagle, a globe with a branch, and a parcel.The 1900s renovation placed a second colonnade of Corinthian columns above the original facade. The Corinthian columns were made of granite sourced from Spruce Head, Maine, and Rockport, Massachusetts. In addition, some of the granite from the lower section of the building was reused in the upper colonnade. These columns measure in diameter, and their centers are spaced apart. The upper colonnade has similar dimensions to the lower colonnade, though the upper colonnade's columns have lighter proportions. The arrangement of lighter Corinthian columns above heavier Ionic columns was in keeping with a principle of classical architecture.
Interior
The original building's structural system is made of masonry, while the addition is built around a steel structure. The roof has a cornice with a masonry parapet that surrounds all four sides. The steel frame is placed atop pilings that descend. The pilings were constructed as close as possible to the original walls of the Merchants' Exchange, eliminating the need to excavate the site using caissons. The building's first floor was originally one story above the street, but it was lowered to ground level during the 1900s renovation. National City Bank employees could enter and exit the building from the southwestern corner of the basement.The interior has a total floor area of. The original interior was completely demolished and refurbished during McKim, Mead & White's renovation. The banking hall is designed similarly to the former waiting room of Pennsylvania Station, another project the firm designed at the same time. The spaces include marble, mahogany, and brass decorations.
Banking hall
The banking hall, a cruciform space, covers and measures from west to east and about from north to south. When built, it was among the United States' largest banking halls. It was accessed by a pair of bronze doors on Wall Street, each weighing. The room's ceiling is approximately tall, with an dome measuring across. On each side are four Corinthian columns, each measuring tall; these support an entablature that circles the space at two-thirds of the room's height. The room also features gray floors and walls, a coffered ceiling, and delicate mezzanine railings. Light gray stone was imported from Europe for the columns and floors, and gray marble was used for the floors and walls. Above the columns, the interior was finished with artificial stone of a similar color. The ceiling is lit by bronze chandeliers; originally, there were five chandeliers that each measured across. Seals of the National City Bank were also placed throughout the space. The dome is decorated with 16 panels in low relief. Four of the panels bear the directions of the compass, and the remaining twelve have astrological signs.The largest coffer in the ceiling is above the southern portion of the banking hall. When the National City Bank moved into the space in 1908, there was a large safe on the south side of the banking floor, which weighed 300 tons. The double-height safe measured approximately across and high. It was surrounded by steel plating and supported by steel and marble stilts that extended into the basement. If anyone attempted to break in, coils along the exterior of the safe would eject hot steam. The interior of the safe contained separate compartments for the bank's daytime and nighttime staff. The safe was moved to the basement in 1957. There was a marble screen and bank tellers' desks around the safe, within an enclosure measuring across.
The Hanover Street side of the banking hall had desks for bank officers, which were separated from the rest of the room by a low marble balustrade with a gate. There were three stories of offices at each corner of the banking hall, which were originally used by the bank. The spaces were designed with few decorations. The southeastern corner of the first floor contained the six-room president's suite, which included the executive and secretary's offices, two conference rooms, a hall, and decorative restroom. Bookkeepers and National City Bank's bond and foreign departments were in each of the other corners. Conference rooms on the third floor were housed in another lavish suite. Pneumatic tubes and telegraph systems were used to transfer data between National City Bank's different departments. The office mezzanines are connected by bronze and iron balconies, which run on two sides of the room alongside the windows. A balcony was also constructed above the southern portion of the banking hall in 1925. The mezzanines also had 21 smaller safes.