Gillender Building

The Gillender Building stood on the northwest corner of Wall Street and Nassau Street, on a narrow strip measuring on Wall Street and on Nassau Street. The 39-story Bankers Trust tower at 14 Wall Street, built in 1911, occupies both the site of the Gillender Building and the adjoining seven-story Stevens Building at 12-14 Wall Street. Surrounding lots to the north and west were incorporated as part of an annex to 14 Wall Street, built between 1931 and 1933. In the 17th century, the area north of Wall Street was occupied by John Damen's farm; Damen sold the land in 1685 to captain John Knight, an officer of Thomas Dongan's administration. Knight resold the land to Dongan, and Dongan resold it in 1689 to Abraham de Peyster and Nicholas Bayard. Both de Peyster and Bayard served as Mayors of New York. The first known building on the Gillender Building's site, a sugar house, was built by Samuel Bayard. In 1718, most of the present-day block was sold to a church congregation, while the corner lot, cut into narrow strips, remained in possession of the de Peysters and the Bayards. In 1773, de Peyster sold the corner lot to the Verplanck family for less than $1,500; the Verplanck mansion later housed Wall Street banks. From 1849 until December 1909, the lot remained in the hands of a single family. Adjacent lots were owned by the Sampson family since 1840, and this property was developed into the Stevens Building in 1880. == Architecture ==

The Gillender Building was designed by Charles I. Berg and Edward H. Clark. It was erected under the supervision of consulting engineer Henry Post and general contractor Charles T. Wills, while the foundations were built by Stephens & O'Rourke (later the O'Rourke Engineering Construction Company). In addition, Maryland Steel and the Pencoyd Bridge Company provided the steel, which was erected by Post and McCord. The Gillender Building cost $500,000 to construct. The New York Times erroneously called the Gillender Building the "highest office structure in the world"; the Manhattan Life Insurance Building (1894) was taller at . The Gillender Building's rentable area () was on par with Manhattan's 1897 average for pre-skyscraper buildings () and lower than the area of adjacent six-story Stevens Building. The disproportion was made more evident in 1903, when the marginally taller Hanover National Bank Building was built on an adjacent lot, dwarfing the slender Gillender Building. Features The Gillender Building attracted attention due to the disproportion of its height and footprint. The new structure occupied about , The 12 columns would carry a total load of . Inside, the Gillender Building contained a plumbing system serving "26 water closets, 17 water basins, 12 wash basins and 5 slop sinks". The receiving tank was relatively small with a capacity of only . ==History==

Construction looking east. The Gillender Building in the center, behind 90 West Street and Trinity Church. During the late 1890s, Helen L. Gillender Asinari was the owner of a six-story office building on the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, having inherited ownership of the land from her grandfather George Lovett, who had purchased the site in 1849. According to media, Gillender Asinari had hurried to build the new tower prior to the anticipated enactment of new, stricter building codes, which led to the shortcomings of the building's design, even though the regulations did not come into effect until 1916. but Gillender Asinari disputed this version, saying that "Mr. Augustus T. Gillender never has had, nor has he now, the slightest interest in the property." The construction contract was awarded to the Charles T. Willis Company, while Hecla Iron Works, Atlas Cement Company, and the Okonite Company of Passaic were principal suppliers. The foundations were constructed in a month, with about one-third of that time devoted to shoring and underpinning adjacent walls; building and sinking caissons; and constructing the brick piers and sealing the air chambers with concrete. The first pier was ready for the grillage on August 17, 1896. The first column was set on September 3 and the last one in the tower was placed on November 16. Advertised as fully fireproof and as the most modern tower on the market, Takeover In 1909, financial institutions began rapidly expanding their properties within the Financial District. The Bankers Trust Company joined the process after the Bank of Montreal, the Fourth National Bank, and the Germania Life Insurance Company acquired their properties on Wall and Nassau Streets. In July 1909, Bankers Trust signed a long-term lease agreement with the Sampson family, owners of the Stevens Building; Initially, the press reported that Bankers Trust planned to build a 16-story office building wrapping around the Gillender Building, with the two bottom floors outfitted to be "one of the finest banking rooms in the city". By April 1910, the final cash price paid to Manhattan Trust was adjusted to $1,250,000; in exchange for the $250,000 difference, the Manhattan Trust retained long-term lease rights for the ground floor "and some other space in the building". The press anticipated the upcoming demolition of the Gillender Building "as the first time when such a high-class office building representing the best type of fire-proof construction" would be torn down Bankers Trust publicized the drafts by Trowbridge & Livingston to build a 39-story tower that, when announced, would be New York City's third tallest building after the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower and the Singer Building. Demolition was preceded with erection of a massive timber canopy over the sidewalks on Nassau and Wall Streets, and a thick wire mesh over the respective streets to protect people from falling debris. Inside, elevator shafts were converted into garbage chutes for the torn partitions and exterior masonry scrap. Openings about square were cut through the floors of all stories above the fourth, allowing demolition contractors to deposit garbage. Demolition of the Stevens Building commenced in the beginning of April 1910, Material from the building was preserved as much as possible for reuse. Two hundred and fifty men were involved in the demolition project during the daytime, and a hundred during the night. The work was timed so that the deconstruction of the steel frame was no more than two stories behind that of the brickwork. The Times said that Volk "strode over busted balustrades like an admiral on his bridge, barking through a megaphone at his crew." The steel had gone down to the thirteenth-story ceiling by May 13. The demolition allowed observers the opportunity to look at the steel structure, Demolition was officially completed June 16, 1910, one day ahead of schedule, One journal reported that "...all previous records for rapid work were surpassed" and that "every vestige of [the Gillender Building] had disappeared" by the time work was completed. It had cost Bankers Trust $50,000 plus $500 for advance completion; the contractor also received all the scrap, valued at $25,000. The Bankers Trust Company Building, now known as 14 Wall Street, was completed in 1912, becoming the tallest banking building in the world. The bank occupied only the three lower floors; its main operations were housed elsewhere in less expensive offices. In 1931, Bankers Trust acquired and demolished the adjacent Hanover, Astor, and Pine Street Buildings, and replaced them with an annex to the original Bankers Trust Building. The annex was completed in 1933, tripling its rentable area. File:Gillender Building1896d.jpg|Top floors and spire File:Gillender Building1896c.jpg|Higher elevations File:Gillender Building1896b.jpg|Midsections File:Gillender Building1896a.jpg|Lower sections File:Gillender Building1896.jpg|Final demolition ==In media==

The Gillender Building is the site of a final scene in Jed Rubenfeld's The Interpretation of Murder, a 2006 novel reconstructing Sigmund Freud's 1909 visit to New York. The narrator and Nora Acton (linked to Freud's case study of Dora) meet for the last time in the Gillender cupola, watch the New York skyline, well aware that the building will be soon torn down. In M. K. Hobson's Hotel Astarte, The Warlock "had his fingernails polished by a mute Chinese woman he kept in locked in a small room in his office on the top floor of the Gillender Building on Wall Street". The story is set in June 1910 and in October 1929, both after the Gillender Building had already been dismantled. ==References==