40 Wall Street

The building's pinnacle reaches , which made it the world's tallest building for one month upon its completion.

Form

40 Wall Street, like many other early-20th-century skyscrapers in New York City, is designed as a freestanding tower, rising separately from all adjacent buildings. 40 Wall Street is one of several skyscrapers in the city that have pyramidal roofs, along with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, 14 Wall Street, Woolworth Building, Consolidated Edison Building, and Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse.

40 Wall Street has several setbacks to conform with New York City's 1916 Zoning Resolution. In general, the facade is composed of buff-colored brick, as well as decorative elements made of terracotta and buff brick. The vertical bays, which contain the building's windows, are separated by piers. Above the central entrance was Elie Nadelman's Oceanus sculpture (also called Aquarius); The Oceanus sculpture was removed prior to 1973. Between 1961 and 1963, Carson, Lundin & Shaw added granite cladding and reconfigured the doorways on the first floor, and replaced the second- through sixth-floor windows. By 1995, the entrance had been reconfigured with seven bronze rectangular doors and three revolving doors, recessed behind the main facade. The roof has French Renaissance-style detail, a design element intended to make the building appear much older than it actually was at the time of its construction. There is a cornice surrounding the roof. As originally arranged, 40 Wall Street hosted the Manhattan Company's banking facilities on the first through sixth floors; offices on its middle floors; and machinery, an observation deck, and recreation areas on the top floors. There were also 43 elevators inside the building when it opened;

Lower stories

Like other early-20th-century skyscrapers in the Financial District, the lobby of 40 Wall Street originally was designed with classical elements such as moldings, pilasters, columns, and heavy doorframes. The ground story was highly decentralized with seven entrances from Wall Street, leading to various vestibules. The westernmost entrance led to a private foyer with its own elevator, while the easternmost entrance connected with the elevator banks on the eastern side of the building. Two ground-level banking rooms extended northward to Pine Street: one at the center and one on the west. There was also space for brokerage-house messengers. A wide, marble staircase from the ground level led up to the main banking room on the second floor. The lobby also has escalators to the second floor. or directly from Pine Street. The walls were once decorated with three murals by Ezra Winter, depicting various scenes from the history of the Financial District; Winter's murals have since been removed. to 2023.

A pair of stairs on the banking room's south wall flanks the escalators and leads up to what was originally the officers' quarters, a rectangular room with five white marble columns.

Stairs from the ground level led to the two basement stories, where the Manhattan Company's vaults were located. It contained several elements of the Doric order, such as columns, pilasters, and a frieze.

The offices of the Manhattan Company's officers overlooked the Wall Street entrance. The offices were furnished with patterned carpets, soft chairs, and single desks, which were meant to evoke a feeling of luxury. According to Architecture and Building magazine, the executive offices' furnishings were intended as a "pleasingly striking contrast to the modern severity of the usual treatment of financial district structures". The sixth floor housed a trading floor for the International Manhattan Company, Inc. The pneumatic-tube system delivered mail to and from terminals on the building's mezzanine, precluding the need for messengers to use the elevators or overcrowd the lobby. built upon the suggestion of William A. Starrett, the building's general contractor. The Luncheon Club occupied a Colonial-style space designed by Matsui and Robert L. Powell, and included an entrance hall and a main dining room covered in wood, as well as private dining rooms with wallpaper. Another members-only dining club, the Rookery Club, was located on the 58th story. The Bank of Manhattan Building had an observation deck on the 69th and 70th floors, above the street; it could fit up to 100 people. The observation deck was closed to the public sometime after World War II. The Manhattan Company was headquartered at a row house at 40 Wall Street, By the early 20th century, the company was growing quickly, having acquired numerous other banks.

Development

Planning

The idea for the current skyscraper was devised by banker George L. Ohrstrom, who began acquiring land for the building in 1928 under the auspices of 36 Wall Street Corporation. Stakeholders in the corporation included Ohrstrom and the builders, Starrett Brothers (later Starrett Corporation). By that December, Ohrstrom had purchased four buildings, with frontage along 27–33 Pine Street and 34–38 Wall Street, and controlled a total area of . The plans had been updated, and the syndicate at that point envisioned a 45-story building. That March, Ohrstrom announced that H. Craig Severance would design a 47-story structure at 36 Wall Street. The corporation bought 25 Pine Street the same month.

Shortly after Severance's original plans were announced, the skyscraper was modified to have 60 floors, which was shorter than the Woolworth Building and the then under construction Chrysler Building. Plans for a 64-story skyscraper were announced after the Manhattan Company agreed to relocate to the new building in early April 1929. By April 8, Ohrstrom and Severance had planned to make the new skyscraper the world's tallest building. Two days later, it was announced that Severance had increased the tower's height to with 62 floors, exceeding the heights of the Woolworth and Chrysler buildings. It was also announced that the Manhattan Company would be 36 Wall Street's main tenant and that the new building would be known as the Bank of Manhattan Building or the Manhattan Company Building.

The builders intended to spend large sums to reduce the construction period to one year, which would allow rental tenants to move into the building sooner. The Manhattan Company and Chrysler buildings started competing for the distinction of "world's tallest building". The "Race into the Sky", as popular media called it at the time, was representative of the country's optimism in the 1920s, fueled by the building boom in major cities. The Manhattan Company Building was revised to in April 1929, which would make it the world's tallest. Severance then publicly claimed the title of the world's tallest building,

Start of construction

thumb|View of the lower stories|alt=View of some of the lower stories from ground level. In the lowest part of the facade, the windows are recessed between stone piers, some of which have flagpoles. Above that, the windows are arranged in pairs, and there is a small setback at the center.

Construction of the Manhattan Company Building began in May 1929. By that time, the syndicate developing the building was known as the 40 Wall Street Corporation, and the building was also known as 40 Wall Street. That same month, the Manhattan Company leased its lots at 40–42 Wall Street and 35–39 Pine Street to the 40 Wall Street Corporation for 93 years. Ownership would be divided among the Manhattan Company, the Iselin family, and the 40 Wall Street Corporation, with the Manhattan Company holding a plurality stake. Simultaneously, the U.S. government invited bids on the adjoining building at 28–30 Wall Street, then occupied by a federal assay office. The assay office plot was reserved for future expansion, instead of being incorporated into the plans for the new skyscraper. The Manhattan Company moved to a temporary headquarters during construction. Starrett Brothers had drawn up a detailed construction schedule for 40 Wall Street, outlining the timeline for each major construction contract. The schedule indicated that structural-steel installation would commence in June 1929 and that all work was to be completed by May 1, 1930.

To save money and time, the foundation of 40 Wall Street was constructed at the same time that buildings on the site were being cleared. The old Manhattan Company building was the last to be cleared. Workers excavated the site to the underlying layer of bedrock, which extended as much as deep. They then installed several dozen hollow cylinders, each measuring wide. In addition, workers installed several hundred steel pilings, which were clustered into piers, infilled with concrete, and topped by steel caps that could accommodate structural loads of up to . Work on 40 Wall Street progressed quickly, and the contractors completed four stories each week. The site was active 24 hours a day, with 2,300 workers working in three shifts; interior furnishing progressed as the steel frame rose. The steel frame for 40 Wall Street was manufactured in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; transported to Jersey City, New Jersey, using 800 railcars; shipped across the Hudson River via barge; and transported from the dock to the construction site via truck. Derricks then lifted the steel beams into place, where groups of four workers riveted them onto the frame. As the tower rose, the derricks were themselves lifted two stories at a time. The building topped out on November 13, 1929. By that time, the steel frame had reached above street level, the facade had been completed to the 54th story, and much of the internal furnishing had been completed. By December, rental agents Brown, Wheelock, Harris, Vought & Company were leasing out the space at the Chrysler and Manhattan Company buildings, which aggregated .

The 40 Wall Street Corporation gave a $12.5 million mortgage for the building's completion in December 1929, and the corporation planned a bond issue of an equivalent value by January 1930. The building's roof was covered with scaffolding by March 1930, although Manhattan Company officials denied that they were trying to increase the building's height. The work was completed one week ahead of schedule, on May 1, 1930. Several workers received craftsmanship awards in a ceremony at the end of April 1930. The building officially opened on May 26. In total, $24 million had been spent on construction. Four workers died while constructing 40 Wall Street; a similar mortality rate to other contemporary projects of similar scale.

Early years

Competition for "world's tallest building" title

thumb|40 Wall Street was the world's tallest completed building for one month. and had it constructed secretly. thereby greatly exceeding 40 Wall Street's height. Disturbed by Chrysler's victory, Shreve & Lamb wrote a newspaper article claiming that their building was the tallest, since it contained the world's highest usable floor. They stated that the observation deck at 40 Wall Street was nearly above the top floor in the Chrysler Building. As a result of the Chrysler Building's spire, 40 Wall Street was the tallest building in Lower Manhattan but not the tallest in New York City. The "Race into the Sky" was defined by at least five other proposals, although only the Empire State Building would survive the [[Wall Street Crash of 1929. Plans for the Empire State Building were changed multiple times; the final plan, published in December 1929, called for the building to be tall. becoming the world's tallest building both by roof height and spire height.

Because of late changes to the plans of both 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building, as well as the fact that the buildings were erected nearly simultaneously, it is uncertain whether 40 Wall Street was ever taller than the Chrysler Building. John Tauranac, who wrote a book about the Empire State Building's history, later stated that if 40 Wall Street had "ever had been the tallest building, they would have had bragging rights, and if they did, I certainly never heard them". If only completed structures are counted, 40 Wall Street was the world's tallest building for one month,