Bank of the Metropolis
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The Bank of the Metropolis was a bank in
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 ...
that operated between 1871 and 1918. The bank was originally located at several addresses around
Union Square Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...
in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
before finally moving to 31 Union Square West, a 16-story
Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...
building designed by
Bruce Price Bruce Price (December 12, 1845 – May 29, 1903) was an American architect and an innovator in the Shingle Style. The stark geometry and compact massing of his cottages in Tuxedo Park, New York, influenced Modernist architects, including ...
and built between 1902 and 1903. The bank building uses a tripartite facade design and neoclassical elements. After the Bank of the Metropolis merged into the
Bank of Manhattan The Manhattan Company was a New York bank and holding company established on September 1, 1799. The company merged with Chase National Bank#Chase National Bank, Chase National Bank in 1955 to form the Chase National Bank#Merger as Chase Manhattan ...
in 1918, the building continued to be used as an office tower. The upper stories were converted for residential use in 1976, while the ground level was later used as a restaurant. The Bank of the Metropolis building was designated a city landmark by the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...
in 1988, and was added to the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 2003.


History


Bank establishment

Starting in the 1870s, the area surrounding
Union Square Park Union Square is a historic intersection and surrounding neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City, located where Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway and Bowery, the former Bowery Road – now Park Avenue, Fourth Avenue – came together in ...
became populated with hotels, theaters, and commercial enterprises. The Bank of the Metropolis was established on June 1, 1871, to serve the merchants around Union Square. The businessman
William Steinway William Steinway, also known as Wilhelm Steinway (born Wilhelm Steinweg; March 5, 1835 – November 30, 1896), son of Steinway & Sons founder Henry E. Steinway, was a businessman and civic leader who was influential in the development of Astoria, ...
, of
Steinway & Sons Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan by German piano builder Henry E. Steinway, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth led to ...
, was among the bank's founding board of directors. The Bank of the Metropolis was initially located at 31 Union Square West, at the site of the present bank building. At the time, most businesses were located in
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 ...
. The 1893 ''King's Handbook to New York City'' described it as a "flourishing outgrowth of the movement of business" further uptown. The bank moved twice during the 19th century: to 17 Union Square West in 1877, and to 29 Union Square West in 1888. During the first decades of the bank's existence, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' described three criminal incidents involving the bank. In 1879, a nighttime guard went to a saloon to drink, leaving the bank without any protection, though no burglaries were reported during that time. A man was caught depositing forged bonds at the bank during the early 1880s, and a thief was arrested in 1889 after robbing a client who had just made a withdrawal. By the mid-1890s, the Bank of the Metropolis had $6 million in deposits. At the time, Union Square was being developed with such buildings as the
Decker Building The Decker Building (also the Union Building) is a commercial building located at 33 Union Square West in Manhattan, New York City. The structure was completed in 1892 for the Decker Brothers piano company, and designed by John H. Edelmann. Fro ...
at 33 Union Square West, near the corner with 16th Street, and the Century Building at 33 East 17th Street, on the northern side of the park. By the beginning of the 20th century, the bank's board of directors included
Louis Comfort Tiffany Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art NouveauL ...
and businessman
Charles Scribner II Charles Scribner II (October 18, 1854 – April 19, 1930) was the president of Charles Scribner's Sons and a trustee at Skidmore College. Early life He was born in New York City on October 18, 1854. He was the son of Emma Elizabeth Blair (1827–1 ...
. The National City Bank acquired a major stake in the Bank of the Metropolis in 1900.


New building

The Bank of the Metropolis bought the plot at the corner of 16th Street and Union Square West. The plot had previously been occupied by a
Brentano's Brentano's was an American bookstore chain with numerous locations in the United States. As of the 1970s, there were three Brentano's in New York: the Fifth Avenue flagship store at Rockefeller Center, one in Greenwich Village, and one in Whit ...
bookstore, which moved elsewhere in 1901. The bank hired
Bruce Price Bruce Price (December 12, 1845 – May 29, 1903) was an American architect and an innovator in the Shingle Style. The stark geometry and compact massing of his cottages in Tuxedo Park, New York, influenced Modernist architects, including ...
to design a 16-story building on the slim L-shaped lot. The land for the bank was adjacent to the Decker Building, directly to the north at 33 Union Square West, which had unsuccessfully attempted to sell the corner lot that the new bank building was to occupy. The bank started ordering stone for the new building in November 1901, and Price submitted his plans to the
New York City Department of Buildings The New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) is the department of the New York City government that enforces the city's building codes and zoning regulations, issues building permits, licenses, registers and disciplines certain construction ...
the next month. The structure was built by the
George A. Fuller George A. Fuller (1851 – December 14, 1900) was an American architect often credited as being the "inventor" of modern skyscrapers and the modern contracting system. Early life and career Fuller was born in Templeton, Massachusetts, near W ...
Company. During construction, the
foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...
of the Decker Building had to be underpinned because the foundation of that building was not located in solid rock. In August 1902, four construction workers were injured when one of the
derrick A derrick is a lifting device composed at minimum of one guyed mast, as in a gin pole, which may be articulated over a load by adjusting its guys. Most derricks have at least two components, either a guyed mast or self-supporting tower, and a ...
s broke. When the building was completed in 1903, it had cost $500,000 in total. Pitman's Journal of Commercial Education, one of the building's first tenants, praised the amenities and its proximity 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 2 ...
's 14th Street–Union Square station, which at the time was under construction.


Later use

The bank building was occupied by several office tenants, including architecture firm Jackson, Rosencrans & Caufield; architect Charles B. Meyers; the Employing Lithographers’ Association; engineering firm W. L. Fleischer & Co.; and Jewish organizations. The Bank of the Metropolis was merged into the
Bank of Manhattan The Manhattan Company was a New York bank and holding company established on September 1, 1799. The company merged with Chase National Bank#Chase National Bank, Chase National Bank in 1955 to form the Chase National Bank#Merger as Chase Manhattan ...
in 1918, though the Union Square West building continued to be used as a banking location. Two years later, the building was sold to Dora Kuch for $2 million. The building remained relatively unchanged until 1975, when developer
David Teitelbaum David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
was granted a
zoning Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into areas called zones, each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a si ...
variance to turn the upper-floor offices into 145 residences. These plans temporarily stalled in 1976 because several banks did not want to finance the $3.3 million conversion project. By 1979, the residential conversion had been completed: most of the building was used as artists' lofts, while four floors were being used as dormitory space for the
Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...
. The former banking room at the ground floor was occupied by a restaurant, the Blue Water Grill, starting in 1996. The restaurant closed in 2019 due to rising rents.


Architecture

The Bank of the Metropolis building is a
Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...
structure with a facade made of
limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
. Price was particularly attached to designing skyscrapers in three parts, mirroring the structure of classical
column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...
s, and the building reflects this base-shaft-capital concept. The tripartite design and the use of neoclassical elements are also present in Price's earlier buildings, including the
American Surety Building The American Surety Building (also known as the Bank of Tokyo Building or 100 Broadway) is an office building and early skyscrapers, early skyscraper at Pine Street and Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financi ...
(1896) and the demolished International Bank and Trust Company Building (1899).


Form

The Bank of the Metropolis building is located on a slim L-shaped plot. It has of frontage on Union Square West, to the east, and on 16th Street, to the south. At the western end of the 16th Street facade, the bank contains a deep wing. This wing runs adjacent to the four buildings at 33-39 Union Square West, and connects back to the Hartford Building at Broadway and 17th Street. The 32.5-foot-wide section on Union Square West exists because the owner of the Decker Building could not sell the corner lot along 16th Street. The L-shaped form was also present in the International Bank and Trust Company Building. The main entrance is on the narrow Union Square West facade, since Union Square was a coveted address at the time of the building's construction. The main entrance was designed to be symmetrical and emphasize the banking space on the ground floor, with a window to the left of the centrally-positioned banking entrance, and a door to the upper floors to the right. A journal article in 1916 said of prominent corner-lot bank locations that "the advantage ..is generally appreciated", an observation that was made in the Landmarks Preservation Commission's report about the building.


Facade

The Bank of the Metropolis's facade is designed so that the building appears as a slab rising from the street. On the south and east facades, the 16-story building is broken up into three horizontal layers of articulation—a 2-story base with rusticated blocks, a 9-story tower, and a 3-story top section—with one "transition" story between each layer. The tripartite articulation serves a more aesthetic than functional purpose. The north and west facades consist of plain brick. The eastern facade on Union Square West contains three vertical architectural bays. A curved, slightly projecting
portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...
supported by two Ionic columns takes up the two base stories, and a carved plaque reading "Bank of the Metropolis" is located at the top of the portico. On either side of the portico are several rows of beveled masonry blocks. The southern facade on 16th Street contains 18 bays, split up into sections of 3, 3, 9, and 3 bays from west to east. At the ground level of the 16th Street facade, there are several wide, arched windows, which replaced the original square-framed windows there. These arched windows were installed after the ground level was converted into a restaurant. On both the south and east facades, the third story contains square-framed windows and projecting courses at the top and bottom. The fourth through 12th stories make up the "tower" section of the bank building, and are relatively flat, except for
spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...
s between each floor, which are embellished with lions. The 13th floor contains scrolled
corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...
s between each set of windows, a string course along the bottom, and
belt course A belt course, also called a string course or sill course, is a continuous row or layer of stones or brick set in a wall. Set in line with window sills, it helps to make the horizontal line of the sills visually more prominent. Set between the f ...
s along the top. There are vertical panels between each window on the 14th and 15th floors, and
palmette The palmette is a motif in decorative art which, in its most characteristic expression, resembles the fan-shaped leaves of a palm tree. It has a far-reaching history, originating in ancient Egypt with a subsequent development through the art o ...
s and lions' heads at the top of each panel. A copper cornice runs atop the 16th floor. Along both facades, there are various recessions in the facade where limestone balconies jut out. The most prominent is on the 9-bay section of the southern facade, which contains a balcony projecting from the 10th floor.


Interior

At the time of the building's opening in 1903, it included a steam heating system, electrically powered lights, mail chutes, telephone lines, and elevators. The ground floor space, formerly the banking hall, was converted into a restaurant space, and is designed in the neoclassical style. The eastern one-fourth of the restaurant space is narrower than the rest. The north side wall is made of white marble on the bottom half and plaster on the top half.
Architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...
s run across the
coffer A coffer (or coffering) in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, also ...
ed ceiling. A mezzanine is located above the westernmost portion of the restaurant space. The western part of the ground floor is separated from the restaurant by a partition. A marble-lined staircase close to the main entrance leads to a basement. To the north of the restaurant, on the eastern end is the office building lobby. A curving staircase leading upstairs is located at the west end of the lobby. Elevators are located within two arches of a three-arched
arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated game machine ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade game's hardware ** Arcade system board, a standardized printed circuit board * Amusement arcade, a place with arcade games * ...
on the northern wall, while the lobby's southern wall is made of veined marble. The office building lobby is also coffered, but the coffers are smaller than in the restaurant space. The upper floors, formerly office space, were converted into residential units. Almost none of the original architectural features remain, except for the staircase with its wooden railings.


Critical review

Architectural writer
Paul Goldberger Paul Goldberger (born in 1950) is an American author, architecture critic and lecturer. He is known for his "Sky Line" column in ''The New Yorker''. Biography Shortly after starting as a reporter at ''The New York Times'' in 1972, he was assign ...
called Price's design for the bank building "a lovely eclectic creation", praising its Ionic portico, narrow shaft, and "enormous, elaborate" cornice.


See also

*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets This is intended to be a complete list of properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places on Manhattan Island, the primary portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan (also designated as New York County, New York ...
*
List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...


References

Notes Sources * *


External links

* {{authority control 1871 establishments in New York (state) 1902 establishments in New York City 1918 disestablishments in New York (state)
Bank Of The Metropolis The Bank of the Metropolis was a bank in New York City that operated between 1871 and 1918. The bank was originally located at several addresses around Union Square in Manhattan before finally moving to 31 Union Square West, a 16-story Renaissa ...
Banks established in 1871 Banks disestablished in 1918 Bruce Price buildings Commercial buildings completed in 1902 Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan Renaissance Revival architecture in New York City Residential buildings completed in 1902 Residential skyscrapers in Manhattan Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan Union Square, Manhattan American companies disestablished in 1918 American companies established in 1871