40 Wall Street
40 Wall Street is a neo-Gothic skyscraper on Wall Street between Nassau and William streets in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Erected in 1929–1930 as the headquarters of the Manhattan Company, the building was designed by H. Craig Severance with Yasuo Matsui and Shreve & Lamb. The building is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places ; it is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, an NRHP district.
The building is on an L-shaped site. While the lower section has a facade of limestone, the upper stories incorporate a buff-colored brick facade and contain numerous setbacks. The facade also includes spandrels between the windows on each story, which are recessed behind the vertical piers on the facade. At the top of the building is a pyramid with a spire at its pinnacle. Inside, the lower floors contained the Manhattan Company's double-height banking room, a board room, a trading floor, and two basements with vaults. The remaining stories were rented to tenants; there were private clubs on several floors, as well as an observation deck on the 69th and 70th floors.
Plans for 40 Wall Street were revealed in April 1929, with the Manhattan Company as the primary tenant, and the structure was opened on May 26, 1930. 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building competed for the distinction of world's tallest building at the time of both buildings' construction; the Chrysler Building ultimately won that title. 40 Wall Street initially had low tenancy rates due to the Great Depression and was not fully occupied until 1944. Ownership of the building and the land underneath it, as well as the leasehold on the building, has changed several times throughout its history. Since 1982, the building has been owned by two German companies. The leasehold was held by interests on behalf of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the mid-1980s. A company controlled by developer and later U.S. president Donald Trump bought the lease in 1995.
Site
40 Wall Street is in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. It occupies the middle of the block bounded by Pine Street to the north, William Street to the east, Wall Street to the south, and Nassau Street to the west. The site is L-shaped, with a longer facade on Pine Street than on Wall Street. The lot measures on Pine Street and on Wall Street. Originally, the site measured on Pine Street and 150 feet on Wall Street. The lot has a total area of.40 Wall Street is surrounded by several buildings, including Federal Hall and 30 Wall Street to the west; 44 Wall Street and 48 Wall Street to the east; 55 Wall Street to the southeast; 28 Liberty Street to the north; and 23 Wall Street and 15 Broad Street to the south. The site slopes down southward so that the Pine Street entrance is on the second floor while the Wall Street entrance is on the first floor.
Prior to the current building's completion, the site was occupied by numerous smaller office buildings. The southern part of the site was occupied by the eight-story Gallatin Bank Building at 34–36 Wall Street, designed by Cady, Berg & See and completed in 1887; the nine-story Marshall Field Building at 38 Wall Street; the Manhattan Company's original headquarters at 40 Wall Street; and a 13-story building to the east. The northern portion contained a 13-story building at 25 Pine Street, a 12-story building at 27–29 Pine Street, and the 13-story Redmond Building at 31–33 Pine Street.
Architecture
The building was designed by lead architect H. Craig Severance, associate architect Yasuo Matsui, and consulting architects Shreve & Lamb. Moran & Proctor were consulting engineers for the foundation, the Starrett Corporation was the builder, and Purdy and Henderson were the structural engineers. The interior was designed by Morrell Smith with Walker & Gillette. Many engineers and contractors were involved in various other aspects of the building's construction.The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has described 40 Wall Street's facade as having "modernized French Gothic" features. The building's massing largely conforms to the Art Deco style, though there are also abstract shapes and elements of classical architecture. According to art history professor Daniel M. Abramson, the classically-styled details at the base were intended to provide "context and support", while the Gothic-style roof was intended to emphasize the building's height. 40 Wall Street is 70 stories tall, with two additional basement stories. The building's pinnacle reaches, which made it the world's tallest building for one month upon its completion.
Form
40 Wall Street, like many other early-20th-century skyscrapers in New York City, is designed as a freestanding tower, rising separately from all adjacent buildings. 40 Wall Street is one of several skyscrapers in the city that have pyramidal roofs, along with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, 14 Wall Street, Woolworth Building, Consolidated Edison Building, and Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse. The building is articulated into three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital. The floors at the six-story base cover the entire L-shaped lot, while the 7th through 35th stories are shaped in a "U", with two wings of different lengths facing west. The 7th through 35th stories occupy nearly the entire lot. Above the 35th story, the building rises as a smaller, square tower through the 62nd story.40 Wall Street has several setbacks to conform with New York City's 1916 Zoning Resolution. On the Wall Street side, the central portion of the facade is recessed through the 26th floor, while symmetrical pavilions project slightly on either side, with setbacks above the 17th, 19th, and 21st floors. The entire Wall Street facade has setbacks above the 26th, 33rd, and 35th floors. The Pine Street facade is asymmetrical, with the western pavilion being much longer; this facade has a setback above the 12th, 17th, 19th, 23rd, 26th, 28th, and 29th floors. The projecting pavilions on both sides are connected at the eighth floor by a dormer.
The building's west-facing wings are of different lengths; the northern wing is significantly longer and has cooling systems atop it, but both wings have minor setbacks above the 26th and 33rd floors, and rise only to the 35th floor. The eastern facade does not have any setbacks below the 35th story.
Facade
40 Wall Street's exterior curtain wall is composed of two layers of brick; the inner layer provides fireproofing, while the outer layer is the exterior cladding. In general, the facade is composed of buff-colored brick, as well as decorative elements made of terracotta and buff brick. The vertical bays, which contain the building's windows, are separated by piers. The piers are flat, a characteristic of the Art Deco style. Spandrel panels, which separate the rows of windows on each floor, are generally recessed behind the piers; the spandrels are generally darker on upper stories. The building's window openings, initially composed of one-over-one sash windows, were later replaced by numerous types of window-pane arrangements or by louvers.Base
The first through sixth stories contain a limestone-and-granite facade. On the first story, the podium on the facade's Wall Street elevation is made of granite. The second- to fifth-floor facades on both sides consist of a colonnade with pilasters made of limestone. The colonnades were intended to resemble those found in Greek temples. During the design of the building, Matsui adjusted the colonnades to match the dimensions of the nearby Subtreasury building.On the Wall Street side, the first floor originally had a central entryway with three bronze-and-glass doors, flanked by numerous entrances to the elevator lobby and the lower banking room. Double-height bronze and glass windows spanned the second and third floors, while cast-iron windows were on the fourth through sixth floors. Above the central entrance was Elie Nadelman's Oceanus sculpture ; the sculpture was a bronze depiction of Oceanus, a Greek Titan pictured on a 19th-century stock certificate issued by the Manhattan Company. The Oceanus sculpture was removed prior to 1973. Between 1961 and 1963, Carson, Lundin & Shaw added granite cladding and reconfigured the doorways on the first floor, and replaced the second- through sixth-floor windows. By 1995, the entrance had been reconfigured with seven bronze rectangular doors and three revolving doors, recessed behind the main facade. Letters reading "The Trump Building" are placed above the first floor, while the fourth floor has a pair of flagpoles.
The Pine Street elevation is arranged similarly to the Wall Street elevation and was likewise redesigned from 1961 to 1963. The Pine Street elevation rises above a low stylobate, in contrast to the Wall Street elevation, which rises above a podium. A clock was on the Pine Street facade from 1967 to 1993. This portion of the facade consists of either 10 or 11 bays. At ground level, there is an entrance to the main elevator lobby, a service entrance, and storefronts slightly above grade. As with the Wall Street side, the fourth floor features a pair of flagpoles.
Upper stories
The 8th through 35th stories comprise the midsection of the building. There are eight flagpoles on the ninth floor of the Wall Street side, four on each pavilion. On the 19th floor of the Pine Street side, there are louvers in place of window openings. On the 36th through 62nd stories, there are brick spandrels between the windows on each story. The spandrels on the 52nd through 57th floors are made of terracotta; on the 58th through 60th floors, terracotta with buttresses; and on the 61st and 62nd floors, darker bricks with pediments and rhombus patterns.The building's pyramidal roof is made of lead-coated copper, which over time has oxidized and turned green. The roof has French Renaissance-style detail, a design element intended to make the building appear much older than it actually was at the time of its construction. The decorations on the roof include diaperwork patterns, where the brickwork is laid in a repeating diagonal grid pattern; terraces, which are supported by buttresses; and small dormer windows. There is a cornice surrounding the roof. On top is a spire with a flagpole and a glass lantern.