388 Greenwich Street, originally called the

Shearson Lehman Shearson was the name of a series of investment banking and retail brokerage firms from 1902 until 1994, named for Edward Shearsonskyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

at 388

Greenwich Street Greenwich Street is a north–south street in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan. It extends from the intersection of Ninth Avenue (Manhattan), Ninth Avenue and Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District, Manhat ...

, with

frontage Frontage is the boundary between a plot of land or a building and the road onto which the plot or building fronts. Frontage may also refer to the full length of this boundary. This length is considered especially important for certain types of ...

s on North Moore and

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

Streets, in the

TriBeCa Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...

neighborhood of

Lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. 388 Greenwich Street forms a complex with the neighboring 10-story 390 Greenwich Street near the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

. Currently, the two buildings comprise the global

headquarters Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the to ...

financial services Financial services are the Service (economics), economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, acco ...

corporation

Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi (Style (visual arts), stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking ...

. 388 Greenwich stands about ten blocks north of the

World Trade Center site The World Trade Center site, often referred to as "Ground zero#World Trade Center, Ground Zero" or "the Pile" immediately after the September 11 attacks, is a 14.6-acre (5.9 ha) area in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The site is bounde ...

and is among TriBeCa's tallest. Like many other office buildings in Manhattan, 388 Greenwich Street contains in addition to office space, a fitness center, full-service dining facilities, a medical center, a conference center, a day care center, and an outdoor park. The building is one of the few in New York with

double-deck elevator A double-deck elevator or double-deck lift is an elevator where one cab is stacked on top of another. This allows passengers on two consecutive floors to be able to use the elevator simultaneously, significantly increasing the passenger capaci ...

s. On

September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

, the building's courtyard was used as a triage center.

Umbrella icon

The building had a , 4-story neon sign near the top of its northern elevation, which depicted a red umbrella. The sign was erected in May 1997; some observers found it emblematic, while others considered it to be distracting. Complementing this neon sign, an iconic, steel , red umbrella sculpture also stood outside 388 Greenwich St at street-level. Both have been removed from the building, the latter in the summer of 2007, as part of a deal between

and St. Paul Travelers Companies which acquired the logo.

Sale

In December 2007, 388 Greenwich Street and 390 Greenwich Street were sold by

in order to reduce real estate exposure on its balance sheet. The complex was acquired by a joint venture consisting of

SL Green Realty SL Green Realty Corp. is a real estate investment trust that primarily invests in office buildings and shopping centers in New York City. As of December 31, 2019, the company owned 43 properties comprising 14,438,964 square feet. Notable prope ...

and SITQ for US$1.58 billion. Citigroup, however, maintained their primary presence in the complex through a 15-year

leaseback Leaseback, short for "sale-and-leaseback", is a financial transaction in which one sells an asset and leases it back for the long term; therefore, one continues to be able to use the asset but no longer owns it. The transaction is generally done f ...

arrangement. In 2016, the bank repurchased the complex and relocated the company's headquarters from

399 Park Avenue 399 Park Avenue is a 41-story office building that occupies the entire block between Park Avenue and Lexington Avenue and 53rd Street and 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was the world headquarters of Citigroup from ...

References

External links

* {{Tribeca, Manhattan 1988 establishments in New York City Bank company headquarters in the United States Citigroup buildings Office buildings completed in 1988 Privately owned public spaces Skyscraper office buildings in Manhattan The Travelers Companies Tribeca West Side Highway