One Liberty Plaza, formerly the U.S. Steel Building, is a

skyscraper 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-ri ...

in the Financial District 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 ...

. It is situated on a block bounded by Broadway, Liberty Street, Church Street, and Cortlandt Street, on the sites of the former

Singer Building The Singer Building (also known as the Singer Tower) was an office building and early skyscraper in Manhattan, New York City. The headquarters of the Singer Manufacturing Company, it was at the northwestern corner of Liberty Street and Broad ...

and

City Investing Building The City Investing Building, also known as the Broadway–Cortlandt Building and the Benenson Building, was an office building and early skyscraper in Manhattan, New York. Serving as the headquarters of the City Investing Company, it was on ...

. The building was designed in the International Style by

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel A. Owings, Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer Jo ...

and completed in 1973. It is tall and has 54 floors. At , each floor offers almost of office space, making it one of the largest office buildings in New York by usable interior space. Its facade is black, consisting of a structural steel frame. South of the building is Zuccotti Park, formerly called Liberty Plaza Park. One Liberty Plaza was originally commissioned by U.S. Steel, and also housed the headquarters of

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment ba ...

. A variety of tenants occupy the space, from large law firms to public and not-for-profit agencies like the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the

World Trade Center Memorial Foundation The National September 11 Memorial & Museum (also known as the 9/11 Memorial & Museum) is a memorial and museum in New York City commemorating the September 11 attacks of 2001, which killed 2,977 people, and the 1993 World Trade Center bom ...

as well as new businesses. Since 2001 One Liberty Plaza has been owned and operated by

Brookfield Properties Brookfield Properties is a North American subsidiary of commercial real estate company Brookfield Property Partners, which itself is a subsidiary of alternative asset management company Brookfield Asset Management. It is responsible for the p ...

History

Singer City Investing Hudson Terminal 1909 crop

The

, the tallest in the world from 1908 to 1909, and the

adjacent to it were demolished from 1967 to 1968 to clear land for One Liberty Plaza's construction. One Liberty Plaza had more than twice the interior area of the two former buildings combined. The building had a substantial renovation in 1989, which involved the creation of a new lobby and elevator system. The lobby and elevators have an extensive security system, and the building has a connection to the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October ...

's Fulton Street/ Fulton Center station () in the basement. In 2001, Brookfield Properties bought the property for $432 million. Following the

September 11 attacks 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 commer ...

, and the subsequent collapse of the World Trade Center nearby, One Liberty Plaza sustained significant facade damage. Hundreds of windows that had been blown out on its western facade needed to be replaced, and heavy dust and debris needed to be removed from the floors and equipment on the roof. An outside area on the street beside

Brooks Brothers Brooks Brothers, founded in Manhattan, New York, in 1818, is the oldest apparel brand in continuous operation in America. Originally a family business, Brooks Brothers produces clothing for men, women and children, as well as home furnishings. B ...

on the ground floor of the building was used as a temporary

morgue A morgue or mortuary (in a hospital or elsewhere) is a place used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification (ID), removal for autopsy, respectful burial, cremation or other methods of disposal. In modern times, corpses have cu ...

in the days following the attack. At one point there was a rumor going around that the building was in danger of collapse. These claims were quickly refuted by the ''New York Times'': The building was planned to be reopened to office workers with a ribbon cutting ceremony on October 22, 2001. But the day before it was to happen, it was decided that it was not yet sufficiently safe for employees to return to the office tower. The tower reopened on October 24, two days after originally scheduled. , it was the 656th tallest building in the world. In December 2017, Brookfield sold a 49% stake in the tower to Blackstone, valuing the tower at $1.55 billion. The sale of the minority stake followed the refinancing of the building in August 2017 with a $784 million loan from

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

Tenants

One Liberty Plaza is a hub of Wall Street activity, housing RBC Capital Markets' trading floors. Major tenants are New Avon (2 floors), the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, and the international law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton (531 attorneys on 11 floors). It also houses the corporate headquarters of Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield (part of

Anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to short s ...

Investment Technology Group Investment Technology Group, Inc. was a United States-based multinational agency brokerage and financial markets technology firm aimed at a hedge fund and asset management clientele. One of the first suppliers of electronic trading services, IT ...

, and insurance companies Arch Insurance Group, Sirius America,

Mutual of America Mutual may refer to: *Mutual organization, where as customers derive a right to profits and votes *Mutual information, the intersection of multiple information sets *Mutual insurance, where policyholders have certain "ownership" rights in the orga ...

, Swiss Re, Generali, and

Allianz Allianz ( , ) is a German multinational financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Its core businesses are insurance and asset management. The company is one of the world's largest insurers and financial services groups. Th ...

and its subsidiaries Fireman's Fund and Interstate/Chicago. The following is a list of the tenants by floor:

References

External links

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One Liberty Plaza
' on

CTBUH The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design. A non-profit organization based at the Monroe Building in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States ...

*
One Liberty Plaza
' on

Emporis Emporis GmbH was a real estate data mining company that was headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. The company collected data and photographs of buildings worldwide, which were published in an online database from 2000 to September 2022. On 12 Sept ...

*
One Liberty Plaza
' on Skyscraperpage.com *
One Liberty Plaza
' on Structurae {{Broadway (Manhattan) 1970s architecture in the United States Broadway (Manhattan) Financial District, Manhattan Office buildings completed in 1973 Privately owned public spaces Skidmore, Owings & Merrill buildings 1 Liberty Plaza U.S. Steel

History

Tenants

See also

References

External links