Chamber of Commerce Building (Manhattan)

The Chamber of Commerce Building is in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. It occupies the southeastern corner of a block bounded by Broadway to the west, Liberty Street to the south, Liberty Place to the east, and Maiden Lane to the north. Liberty Place serves as an alley between the Chamber of Commerce Building to the west and the Liberty Tower, facing Nassau Street, to the east. The building's land lot has a total area of . The lot has a frontage of on Liberty Street and extends deep. The Chamber of Commerce Building is surrounded by numerous other structures, including the Liberty Tower and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building to the east, 28 Liberty Street to the southeast, 140 Broadway to the south, and One Liberty Plaza to the west. == Architecture ==

The Chamber of Commerce Building was designed in the Beaux-Arts style by architect James Barnes Baker, a member of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, for which the structure was erected. The building was expanded in 1922 by Helmle & Corbett, while the interior design dates to a 1991 renovation by Haines Lundberg Waehler. as well as for the 1922 expansion. The building is four stories high, plus a half-story attic. Its structural system consists of masonry load-bearing walls. The top story is housed in a mansard roof clad with copper. The main facade on Liberty Street contains four vertical bays and is divided horizontally into three sections: ground story, second story, and third and fourth stories. On Liberty Street, the leftmost bay is generally more elaborate than the three rightmost bays. The side facade on Liberty Place is similar to that on Liberty Street, though more simple in design, and is five bays wide. There are two entrances at the ground story on Liberty Street, both raised slightly above street level. The left entrance is topped by an arched pediment with an elaborate carving. The third and fourth floors were originally set back behind the Liberty Street facade, creating a terrace above the colonnade. The third floor is plainly decorated, with paired windows in each bay, while the fourth floor is within the dormer roof. There was also a banking vault, described in the New-York Tribune as one of the city's largest vaults that did not belong to a safe-deposit firm. The lower part of the room was not designed with any windows because the chamber's massive portraits were to be hung in that area. The upper part of the main room, above , contains the oval windows of the facade. The ceiling has a skylight at its center, surrounded by a gilded coved ceiling. The portraits included those of John Cruger, the first president of the chamber; Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father of the United States; and Ulysses S. Grant, the former President of the United States. The paintings dated to 1772 and were generally only of deceased individuals; the chamber did not remove portraits once they were hung. The collection was also generally viewable only to chamber members, but the public was occasionally allowed inside the building. Many portraits were removed in 1979 when the chamber moved out. The floor had a "large and beautiful rug", which covered almost the whole space; The original floor surface was made of marble, although it was covered with a plywood platform in 1991. Mahogany desks for the International Commercial Bank of China were installed in 1991 after the building was renovated. Upper stories In general, the upper stories had decorative woodwork and marblework. On the third and fourth stories were meeting rooms as well as space for the Commerce Club. This portion of the building contained the library, president's room, committee rooms, and offices. Much of the furniture was colonial in design. The president's room was more elaborately decorated than the other rooms on these levels. Italian woodwork and white marble were used throughout. Following the 1922 renovation, the fourth floor contained an oak-paneled elevator landing and vaulted stair hall. The ceiling of the fourth-floor elevator landing had three octagonal allegorical reliefs depicting commerce, industry, and transportation. The original library on the fourth floor became a banquet room, while another story with a library and committee rooms was added. During the 1991 renovation, the third and fourth floors became executive offices for the International Commercial Bank of China, while the top story became a cafeteria. == History ==

The Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York was founded in 1768 as the first organization of its type in North America. After the chamber was granted a formal charter by King George III of Great Britain in 1770, it held an inaugural meeting at the Fraunces Tavern with twenty merchants in attendance. Before the current building at 65 Liberty Street was built, the chamber had never been housed in a building specifically constructed for use as its headquarters. Instead, the chamber occupied several office buildings or trading exchange buildings. Abiel Abbot Low was the first president of the Chamber of Commerce to suggest a dedicated headquarters building for the chamber, in 1865, but nothing came of that plan. This structure was an iron-fronted building with six stories. Planning and construction By the end of the 19th century, the Chamber of Commerce was looking to construct a building with enough space for offices and an assembly room. According to Architectural Record magazine, the Chamber of Commerce wished for its assembly hall to be "spacious and imposing" and for the exterior to be "large enough to avoid insignificance". At the time, the Chamber of Commerce was housed in a "small apartment". In addition to offices, a library, and an assembly room, Orr planned to include space on the first floor for a space that could be rented out to a bank. The New York Realty, Bond, Exchange and Trust Company bought the 65 Liberty Street site in 1899 for $580,000. The chamber had raised its original goal of $1 million by the following April. Wealthy members of the chamber ultimately raised a collective $1.5 million. Subscribers to the fund included Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, William Collins Whitney, and the Guggenheim family. News media reported in December 1900 that the chamber was considering paying $300,000 for a site on Pine Street. at a cost of $700,000. James B. Baker had been selected as the architect by May 1901. In May 1902, chamber members Morris Ketchum Jesup, John Stewart Kennedy, and William E. Dodge donated the statues of DeWitt Clinton, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The sculptures, to cost $12,000 each, were contracted to Martiny and French after the original plan to decorate the Liberty Street facade with allegorical sculptures was abandoned. The Chamber of Commerce Building opened on November 11, 1902, just more than a year after the opening ceremony. Former U.S. President Grover Cleveland was the primary orator at the opening ceremony. while the guests included then-current U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and various ambassadors and representatives from other nations. The sculptures by Martiny and French were dedicated on November 17, 1903, with a ceremony attended by 400 chamber members. Chamber of Commerce use During the first decade of the 20th century, the Lawyers' Title Insurance and Trust Company had offices in the Chamber of Commerce Building, with 700 employees. The company moved to its own structure between July and September 1908. The Lawyers' Mortgage Company occupied the basement and ground floor from 1906 until 1921, when the space was leased by the Guaranty Trust Company. Following World War I, the Chamber of Commerce's influence started to shrink as corporations became more prominent. The sculptural groups on the facade, having worn down significantly due to chemical reactions and weather conditions, were removed in 1926. The Piccirilli Brothers made casts for the sculptural groups so they could be redone in granite or bronze if the chamber ever requested their reinstallation, although that never occurred. after alterations were made to these stories. The ground-floor space was occupied by the Harriman National Bank by 1929. Harriman only stayed in the building through the mid-1930s. The ground floor and basement were leased to the Wanamaker's department store in 1944, with the space to be used by Wanamaker's men's division. After World War II, most of the chamber's day-to-day operations were outsourced and the chamber was staffed exclusively by volunteers. The Great Hall was consequently no longer used frequently. Later use The chamber decided to sell 65 Liberty Street in 1979, relocating to 200 Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and merging with the New York City Partnership to create the Partnership for New York City. The chamber's collections curator, Evelyn G. Ortner, said in early 1983 that the chamber was no longer selling portraits. Some of these portraits were subsequently exhibited at the New-York Historical Society. The Chamber of Commerce Building remained unoccupied for ten years because potential tenants balked at the cost of retrofitting it to modern standards, and potential buyers had already twice failed to complete the sale. Two years later, Haines Lundberg Waehler finished renovating the building into office space at a cost of more than $12 million. The badly damaged wall covering was replaced with velvet; a plywood floor surface was laid atop the original marble floor of the Great Hall, and cables were run beneath the plywood floor. The mechanical systems were also overhauled. Since the building was on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and was a New York City designated landmark, the bank hoped to receive a tax credit for the renovation. , Mega International still owned the building. == Impact ==

When the Chamber of Commerce Building was being constructed, a writer for The Century Magazine stated, "Of non-official buildings projected or already begun, none is more important in its indirect bearing on the commercial greatness of the city than the home of the Chamber of Commerce." Upon its completion, the Architectural Record said the structure "is distinguished at once from the merely business buildings by its sumptuous character, its costly materials, and the obvious freedom from ordinary business limitations, shown by its design." However, as The New York Times reported upon the building's opening, "Comments on the building as a whole are not always favorable". The Chamber of Commerce Building's exterior was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) as an official city landmark on January 18, 1966. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and was re-added to the NRHP as a National Historic Landmark in 1977. Following the chamber's relocation in 1979, the LPC also considered the Great Hall as an interior landmark. The LPC ultimately decided against it because the agency's rules mandated that interior landmarks had to be public spaces, and the chamber had claimed that the interior was a private space. == See also ==