37 Wall Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 37 Wall Street by Carter Horsley

The very elegant, 25-story structure at 37 Wall Street was erected in 1907 to designs by Francis Hatch Kimball for the Trust Company of America.

Kimball’s other New York City buildings include the 1889 Corbin Building at 192 Broadway next to the Fulton Center on Broadway, Trinity and U.S Realty Buildings at 111 and 115 Broadway and the demolished 33-story City Investing Company Building at 165 Broadway that was razed in 1968 to make way for One Liberty Plaza and the 348-foot-high Manhattan Life Insurance Building at 64-66 Broadway that was demolished in 1965 to make way for an annex to One Wall Street. The Manhattan Life Insurance Building was the first building in the city over 100 meters tall.

The company had demolished the 25-year-old United States Bank Building at 41 and 43 Wall Street and the Metropolitan Trust Company Building at 37 and 39 Wall Street.

The New York Tribune reported that “the banking rooms on the first floor are expected to be the most magnificent and elaborate offices in the city,’ adding that “the outside of the building will be constructed of marble for seven stories” and “the remaining eighteen being of red brick with marble trimmings.”

In 2007, Orin S. Wilf, president of Skyline Developers, the New York subsidiary of Garden Homes development, converted the building to residential use creating 372 rental apartments.  Costas Kondylis was the architect for the conversion.

Bottom Line

One of the city’s major early skyscrapers, this elegant tower was completed in 1907 and converted a century later to rental apartments with Tifffany & Co., has its major retail tenant.

Description

In its November 8, 2012 article on the building, the wonderful website “daytonianinmanhattan.blogspot.com” provided the following commentary:

“The white marble base exploded in ornate Beaux Arts decoration.  Above the central opening, two cherubs held a garland that draped down both sides of the window frame.  Carved lions heads, scrolled brackets, fruits and flowers dripped from the façade.  Above, the red brick central shaft, which showed more restraint, was interrupted by an interesting six-story bay.  The uppermost floors returned to white marble sheltered by an overhanging cornice.”

The “interesting six-story bay,” in fact, is the building’s most interesting feature as the makes the three window bays at the center of the façade bay windows in contrast to the façade’s other indented windows.

The article also noted that “as the new skyscraper rose, entrances were opened at each floor that connected” to the adjacent building at 35 Wall Street to allow tenants in that building larger spaces.

The lower six floors rusticated and the fourth through the sixth floors had a large and very handsomely arched surround above a balustrated base.

Amenities

The building has a doorman, a gym, a lounge with pool tables and a screening room and there is a landscaped roof garden.

Apartments

Apartment B on floors 18 through 24 are two-bedroom units with an entry next to an open, pass-through kitchen adjacent to a 25-foot-long living room.

Apartment A on floors 18 through 24 are one-bedroom units with an entry foyer that leads past an open, pass-through kitchen to a 16-foot-long living room next to the bedroom that has an angled wall.

Apartment J on floors 3 through 9 is a studio unit with an 18-foot-long home office, and an open kitchen in the 26-foot-long living room.

Apartment S on floors 10 through 15 is a studio with an open kitchen and a 22-foot-long living room with a bay window.

Apartment T on floors 15 through 24 is a studio with a long entry foyer that leads to a very large walk-in closet, an open kitchen and a 16-foot-long living room.

History

In 1918, the daytonianinmanhattan article noted that the Equitable Trust Company took over the banking rooms of the Trust Company of Americas and 11 years later the Interstate Trust Company opened its headquarters there, “one more in a string of banking firms that would use the cavernous first floor at their headquarters,” adding that in October, 1941, the Public National Bank and Trust Company opened there, and in 1959 the Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company of New York began operations…In 1963, the United States Trust Company broke through three floors to enlarge their offices are 45 Wall Street….Four years later the main banking floor would change hands again.  In 1967, it was announced that ‘extensive renovations to provide modern trading floor and administrative offices for the NYCE are underway….The move lasted until the 1980’s when Morgan Guarantee Trust Company moved in.”

The building’s ground floor and mezzanine retail space was taken over in 2007  by Tiffany & Company, the luxury jeweler that had been founded in 1937 just around the corner.