"The structure was designed in the Italian Romanesque Revival style by York and Sawyer, with William Louis Ayres as the partner in charge. It is on the south side of 42nd Street, across from Grand Central Terminal to the north and between the Pershing Square Building to the west and the Chanin Building to the east. 110 East 42nd Street is named for the Bowery Savings Bank, which had erected the building as a new branch structure to supplement its original building at 130 Bowery. The building was erected within "Terminal City", a collection of buildings above the underground tracks surrounding Grand Central, and makes use of real-estate air rights above the tracks. The building is directly above the New York City Subway's Grand Central–42nd Street station.
As it was not a freestanding structure, 110 East 42nd Street deviated from traditional bank building designs, being laid out as an office building with a bank. The sandstone facade is divided into three vertical sections: the base, tower, and upper stories. Within the four-story base on 42nd Street, there is a small office entrance to the west, a large round-arched entrance at the center, and a smaller arcade to the east. The remainder of the facade is split by vertical piers into multiple bays. The ground floor contains a 80-by-197.5-foot (24.4 by 60.2 m) rectangular room behind the arch, stretching 65 feet (20 m) tall; this was originally the banking room. An annex known as the "Chapel" is to the east of the banking room, and an elevator vestibule and subway entrance are to the west. The other floors are used as offices.
110 East 42nd Street, as well as the adjacent Pershing Square Building, were built on the site of the Grand Union Hotel. Construction started in 1921 and was completed in 1923, and an addition was built between 1931 and 1933. Its facade and banking hall were made New York City designated landmarks in 1996. The building was sold to SL Green in 1998, and the former banking space was turned into an event venue and banquet hall operated by Cipriani S.A. The upper floors of 110 East 42nd Street continue to be used as an office building. Gotham Realty owned the office floors from 2007 to 2011, and Meadow Partners took ownership of the office stories in December 2021.
Site
110 East 42nd Street is in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is bounded by 42nd Street to the north and 41st Street to the south, in the middle of the city block between Park Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenue to the east. The L-shaped land lot occupies 25,613 square feet (2,379.5 m2), with a frontage of 154.5 feet (47.1 m) on 42nd Street and a depth of 197.5 feet (60.2 m). On the same block, the Pershing Square Building is to the west and the Chanin Building is to the east. Other nearby buildings include the Grand Hyatt New York hotel to the north, the Chrysler Building to the northeast, the Socony–Mobil Building to the east, and 101 Park Avenue to the south.
The completion of the underground Grand Central Terminal in 1913 resulted in the rapid development of Terminal City, the area around Grand Central, as well as a corresponding increase in real-estate prices. Among these were the New York Central Building at 47th Street and Park Avenue, as well as the Grand Central Palace across 42nd Street from the present 110 East 42nd Street. By 1920, the area had become what The New York Times called "a great civic centre"
Architecture
The building was designed in the Italian Romanesque Revival style by the firm of York & Sawyer. The design shares many elements with the Pershing Square Building directly to the west, which was also co-designed by York & Sawyer. The George A. Fuller Company was the general contractor, and numerous other contractors and material suppliers were involved in the building's construction. Architecture and Building characterized the building as having been inspired by Byzantine architecture, while architect and writer Robert A. M. Stern described the edifice as containing elements of both the Byzantine and the Romanesque.
Form
York and Sawyer's original plans for 110 East 42nd Street called for a four-story-tall banking room, topped by thirteen office floors, to extend the width of the block between 41st and 42nd Streets. A hip-roofed penthouse on top of the office floors would bring the building's height to 18 floors. The building has a frontage of 104 feet (32 m) on 42nd Street and extends 198 feet (60 m) to the back of the lot at 41st Street.
As it was not a freestanding structure, 110 East 42nd Street deviated from traditional bank building designs, including that of the original main branch at Bowery and Grand Street. Most significantly, it did not resemble a "modified Greek temple" as earlier bank buildings had.[16] The building was instead designed in the Italian Romanesque Revival style, The Italian Romanesque design provided consistency to the facade, since the Pershing Square Building to the west was designed in a similar manner. York & Sawyer's ultimate design emphasized the juxtaposition of office and banking concerns in the building, which are stacked one above the other. The placement of offices above the banking hall reflected the limitations of the small site.
Facade
The facade is divided into three vertical sections: the base, tower, and upper stories. The facade contains elements such as arcades, and cornices with corbelling. A variety of materials and colors are used for the building's individual elements. The facade elements are also decorated with representations of figures such as "birds, beasts, fantastic mythological creatures human forms".
The 42nd Street facade is largely made of Ohio sandstone.[6][12] On the 42nd Street side, there are also columns and colonettes made of pink granite; tiled wall copings; and spandrels made of green marble.[6] The spandrels separate metal-framed windows on each story.[11] The 41st Street facade is made of sandstone on the first floor, and buff-colored bonded brick above it. At the bottom of both facades is a water table made of granite, which is 3 feet (0.91 m) higher on the eastern part of the building, due to the area's topography sloping downward to the east. Allegorical decorations, attributed to the firm of Ricci and Zari, are also placed on the facade.
Base
On the four-story base facing 42nd Street to the north, there is a large round-arched entrance taking up most of the facade, with detailed archivolts running on the underside of the archway. The arch measures 27 feet (8.2 m) wide and 47 feet (14 m) high. The large ground-floor arch leads to the giant banking room inside. A short flight of stairs leads to a set of doors, above which is a large window that fills the rest of the arch opening. There are voussoirs running along the top of the arch, with a carved motif located within every other voussoir. A pair of rose windows, small circular apertures, are located at the fourth floor flanking the top of the arch. An arcade with arched openings runs along the fifth floor facade.[17] Also above this large arch are carvings of numerous animals that represent facets of the savings industry. These include a squirrel, a rooster, a dog, a lion, an owl, an eagle, a human with keys, and a farmer.
To the west of the main archway (on the right side as seen from 42nd Street), a small arch provides access to the office tower's entrance vestibule, the elevator lobby, and the Grand Central–42nd Street subway station. The entrance contains a semicircular tympanum above the doorway, with a geometric pattern, as well as embossed surrounds on either side of the doorway. The words "The Bowery Savings Bank Building" are inscribed on top of the tympanum, and the building's address is fully spelled out on the bottom of the tympanum. Above this archway are two pairs of windows, one each at the third and fourth floors. The third floor includes two rectangular windows and the fourth floor contains two arched grilles in place of window openings.
To the east (left) is the six-story "Chapel" annex completed in 1933. The lower two floors contain a three-arched arcade with two granite columns. The rectangular third-floor windows and arched fourth-floor windows are similar to those on the west side of the facade. Above the first- and second-floor arcade, there are four carved motifs, located at even intervals, as well as an inscription "A Mutual Institution Chartered 1834 To Serve Those Who Save". There is an arcade running across the 5th story facade.
The facade of the base on 41st Street, to the south, is similar in that it also contains a large archivolted arch with a set of doors below a large window. However, the doors on the 41st Street facade are located in a three-faced structure that projects slightly. The entrance arch on 41st Street is the same size as that on 42nd Street. Flanking the arch are three bays, two to the west (left) and one to the east (right) of the arch. These bays each contain two rectangular windows on the second floor, two arched windows on the third floor, and a rose window on the fourth floor. A driveway leading to an underground parking garage is located on the first floor underneath the leftmost bay.
Tower
The upper floors are largely finished in limestone with marble spandrels and metal-framed windows. On the 42nd Street side above the four-story base, the 5th through 13th floors are articulated with vertical piers and window spandrels. The piers divide the facade into five bays: four above the main banking entrance in the center, and one bay above the office-building entrance on the west (right) side. Each bay contains two windows on each floor. Horizontal cornices with corbeling are located above the 14th and 17th floors. There is an arcade running across the 5th story facade, as well as another arcade running across the 15th and 16th stories. The 17th story contains round-arched window openings while the 18th story consists of four windows that each contain three panes. On the 17th floor, at the top of 110 East 42nd Street's tower section, are tiled copings. At the 42nd Street facade, a flagpole extends from the center of the tower section at the fifth floor, directly above the center of the archway.
On the 41st Street side, the facade rises nine stories from ground level, with a cornice at the top of this section. Above the ninth floor, the building contains a 22-foot (6.7 m) setback, and the tower rises behind this setback to the 17th story. The 41st Street side is also articulated with vertical piers and window spandrels. It also contains five bays, with each bay containing two windows per floor.
Ground floor
The first floor consists of three sections: an elevator vestibule on the west, a banking room on the center, and the smaller "Chapel" section to the east. The annex and banking rooms use a mixture of materials on the walls and columns. According to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, these include ashlar as well as "marble, limestone, sandstone, imitation stone, and plaster". Valuables were stored in a bank vault in the basement, measuring 9 feet 8 inches (2.95 m) wide and 36 feet (11 m) deep.[26] The York Safe and Lock Company built a rectangular steel vault door measuring 36 inches (910 mm) thick "
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