Greenwich Savings Bank Building

The Greenwich Savings Bank Building is on the northern side of 36th Street, running the entire block between Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) to the east and Broadway to the west, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building's lot covers . Because Broadway runs diagonally to the Manhattan street grid, the lot is trapezoidal, with the western facade on Broadway running at an irregular angle. Prior to the construction of the Greenwich Savings Bank Building, the two-story Sheridan Building occupied the site. The neighborhood had become dense after World War I with the construction of hotels and stores, as well as the development of what is now the Garment District of Manhattan. The site to the south once contained the New York Herald Building, the Renaissance Revival-style headquarters of the New York Herald. Because the Herald Building had a loading dock on 36th Street, the bank's design does not include any entrances from 36th Street to alleviate congestion there. == Architecture ==

The Greenwich Savings Bank Building was designed by bank architects York and Sawyer in a Classical Revival style, with a limestone and sandstone exterior. It was built by Marc Eidlitz & Son. The building consists of six stories above a basement, with a steel-framed internal superstructure. According to the New York City Department of City Planning, the building has a gross floor area of . The building is tall, equal to a six- or seven-story building, but when completed it was smaller than many neighboring buildings. Base At the center of the Broadway facade is an entryway with a molded surround approached by four steps made of pink granite. The entrance doorway contains a double door made of bronze with classical reliefs. The soffits under the doorway have square and rectangular molded panels. An electric sign is hung beneath the top of the entryway. An eared tablet with the carved words is inscribed above the top of the entryway, flanked by carved griffins. On either side of the entryway are three window openings. On 36th Street, there are ten windows, grouped as five each on the west and east ends of the facade. The eight inner windows contain iron grills above them. There are no doors on 36th Street. On Sixth Avenue, the base is largely similar to that on Broadway. Colonnades All three sides contain fluted Corinthian columns that measure about high and about in diameter. On Sixth Avenue, the colonnade is also an octastyle, and the ceiling of the portico is coffered. However, the arrangement of windows behind the colonnade is different from that on Broadway. Within the dado, there are four rectangular windows, two each on the extreme ends of the facade. Above is a single arched window with an archivolt, which is flanked by a pair of rectangular windows. There are antae and unfluted pilasters only on the south side of the octastyle. A long inscription above the attic on Broadway welcomed bank visitors. This inscription was written by the Rev. Russell Bowie, who at the time of the building's opening served as Grace Church's rector. A similar modification has been made on the Sixth Avenue facade, which also had letters with the bank's name on them. Above the attic is a denticulated cornice. Interior Vestibules On the west side of the ground floor, leading from Broadway, is a vestibule shaped as an irregular octagon. This vestibule has a travertine marble floor that is bordered by Belgian black marble. A strip of black-and-white tesserae and a double strip of black tesserae run around the black marble floor. The center of the floor surface has a lozenge measuring , which has a depiction of a black-tesserae triton within a green-and-white marble background and a black-and-white tesserae border. The walls have wrought bronze radiator grills. Above the double door facing Broadway is a transom window with five panes. The ceiling is made of plaster and has shallow coffers. The Sixth Avenue vestibule is also cruciform and symmetrical, rather than being irregularly shaped. North of the foyer is a stair hall with a coffered ceiling and smooth stone walls, which leads to a staircase with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The western wall of this stair hall has a vestibule leading to the boardroom; this vestibule has wooden walls and a plaster ceiling. In both the stair hall and the boardroom vestibule, the floor is tiled similarly to in the Broadway foyer. Banking room The elliptical banking room was designed to maximize space usage in the trapezoidal lot. This room measures about long on its west–east axis and wide on its north–south axis. Around the perimeter of the room are four desks and four counters atop bronze brackets, with beveled-glass tabletops. There are also eleven benches with decorative bronze legs. A podium made of rusticated limestone and sandstone runs around the banking room. Eight sconces are mounted on the podium, four each on the north and south walls. The columns rise about . The basement was described as containing lockers, toilets, storage, and other rooms primarily found in a regular savings bank. The vault door, weighing with a thickness of , was designed by Frederick S. Holmes and was the second-largest in the United States at the time of the building's completion, surpassed only by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland's vault. There was a telephone and small emergency exit in the vault. The bank officers' workspaces were placed on the Broadway mezzanine, The north wall of the Broadway mezzanine connects to the barrel-vaulted staircase that leads from the Broadway vestibule. The space has three walls with wooden wainscoting on the north, south, and west, while the east wall overlooks the banking hall loggia. The wainscoting only rises to the lower edge of the large arched windows that face Broadway. The remainder of the walls are clad in rusticated stone, with metal grilles in the window opening, while the ceiling has coffers. There is a room with a fireplace, wood-paneled walls, and doors to other rooms on the south side of the Broadway mezzanine. The president's room was in the southwest corner of that mezzanine, while the committee room adjoined it. The Sixth Avenue mezzanine is similar but simpler in design to the Broadway mezzanine. The windows lack grills, the ceiling lacks coffers, and the north and south walls lead to other rooms, elevators, and fire stairs. The other floors contained various spaces. There was a kitchen and pantry on the north side of the sixth floor, above the banking room, which served two officers' dining rooms facing Broadway and an employees' dining room facing Sixth Avenue. There was also a rest area for the clerks. The dining rooms and rest area opened onto the rooftop where there was an open space for employee leisure. There was also a dormitory area for workers. By the 2000s, the third and fifth stories were used only for storage. The fourth story had one small office and the sixth story had several offices, but these were completely redesigned from their original detail. == History ==

The Greenwich Savings Bank was founded in 1833 and was originally headquartered at 10–12 Carmine Street near Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. The original headquarters was relocated in 1839 to 11 Sixth Avenue. The bank further relocated in 1846 to 41 Sixth Avenue and in 1854 to 71-75 Sixth Avenue. In 1892 the bank moved to the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 16th Street, further north in Chelsea. By the 1920s, development was moving northward in Manhattan, and the bank wanted a new site that was centrally located, in anticipation of further growth. Development In early 1921, the Greenwich Savings Bank purchased land at Broadway and 36th Street in midtown York and Sawyer might have been selected because of their previous work with the bank's officers, albeit not necessarily in a banking context. The cornerstone of the new building was ceremonially laid on December 6, 1922. By the next year, the columns were being erected. The new bank building was projected to be the second-largest in Midtown, after the Bowery Savings Bank building at 110 East 42nd Street. At the time, the Greenwich Savings Bank had 94,026 accounts and a combined $92 million. By January 1924, the building was scheduled to open the following month. On May 17, 1924, two days before the new Broadway headquarters' opening, one hundred million dollars of the Greenwich Savings Bank's holdings were moved from the old headquarters, using armored cars guarded by heavily armed policemen. Use as bank At the Greenwich Savings Bank's hundredth anniversary, nine years after the new building's opening, the bank had 131,156 accounts and $154 million in deposits. York and Sawyer filed plans in 1940 to add office space to the Greenwich Savings Bank Building at a cost of $100,000. The new office space, equivalent to one-third of a full story, was to be constructed between the trusses that held up the ceiling of the banking area. The work was to be conducted by general contractor Eglehart, Caldwell & Scott Inc. as well as consulting engineers Meyer, Strong & Jones Inc. and H. Balcom Associates. With bank deregulation in 1980, the Greenwich Savings Bank started having big losses and, in 1981, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the New York State Banking Department sought buyers for the bank. The building was then occupied in 1981 by the Metropolitan Savings Bank, followed in 1985 by the Crossland Savings Bank. With the closure or downsizing of bank branches in the late 20th century, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) proposed designating several major bank interiors in 1990, including the Crossland Bank Building, the Manufacturers Hanover Building, and the Apple Bank for Savings Building. The building became a Crossland Federal Savings Bank branch in January 1992 after the FDIC seized the Crossland Savings Bank. The LPC designated the Greenwich Savings Bank Building and the interior banking hall as a landmark on March 3, 1992. By then, the building was owned by Gerald and Malcolm Rosenberg, who were recorded as being opposed to the landmark designation. The firm planned to rent out in the building for $1.65 million per year, with a tenant who could sign a long-term triple net lease running for at least 10 years. They created several renderings for alternative uses of the banking hall, including an auditorium, trading floor, restaurant, and store. HSBC, which occupied the banking space, was planning to relocate to a much smaller space at 1350 Broadway. Haier planned to operate a showroom and restaurant in the banking space, leasing the restaurant operations to another entity, and making 1356 Broadway the headquarters for its operations in the Americas. According to Haier America CEO Michael Jemal, the company wished to keep the interior publicly accessible. Gruzen Samton Architects was planning a renovation of the landmark interiors. Haier installed its executive offices in the basement, as well as a reception area with a 122-bottle wine cellar. On the top floor, Haier displayed products to potential customers. For a short time after its offices opened, Haier had used the banking area as a showroom for its products, including refrigerators and air conditioners; this use was seen as wasteful and, in August 2002, the company marketed the banking area as an event venue called Gotham Hall. An event management company was contracted to operate Gotham Hall and leased several of the Haier Building's large rooms through 2033. The events at Gotham Hall have attracted guests such as U.S. President Barack Obama, actress Eva Mendes, and fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 16, 2005. Haier moved its North American headquarters to Wayne, New Jersey, in 2014, relocating about 200 workers. The Haier Building was put up for sale in June 2015 for an unknown sum. The same year, Isaac Chetrit and Ray Yadidi bought the building's air rights for $26 million, intending to use the air rights for a project at 100 West 37th Street. The Haier Building was refinanced with a $23.8 million loan in early 2024; at the time, the structure was valued at $30.5 million, and its tenant, Gotham Hall, earned about $5.7 million annually. ==See also==