Photo courtesy of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Undertaken at a time when Downtown had lost financial hegemony to the
new, Modernist towers of Midtown, the glass and aluminum Chase Manhattan
Bank Tower rises 800 plus feet and signaled the rebirth of construction
in the neighborhood. The building, along with Two Chase Manhattan Plaza
(aka The Chase National Bank Building), 18-20 Pine Street (Graham, Anderson,
Probst & White, 1926-1928), secured the air rights of two whole city
blocks and thus could rise, without set backs, as a pristine rectangle
from the plaza below. Numerous plaza and tower combinations would follow
in the next decades. One Chase Manhattan Plaza replaced the Mutual Life
Insurance Company Building, 32-34 Nassau Street (C.W. Clinton and Clinton
& Russell, 1883-1884, 1888, 1892, 1900-1904). |