The Skyscraper Museum is devoted to the study of high-rise building, past, present, and future. The Museum explores tall buildings as objects of design, products of technology, sites of construction, investments in real estate, and places of work and residence. This site will look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.
AMERICAN BANK NOTE COMPANY, BRONX
Kirby, Petit & Green Architects, 1909-1911. Photographs courtesy of the Bank Note
Squeezed out of lower Manhattan by rising land prices and the need to expand and modernize its production line, in 1909 The American Bank Note Company began construction of a new plant in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx designed by Kirby, Petit & Green. Completed in 1911, the steel-framed, T-shaped building was organized along the sloped site and divided into two wings. A narrow five-story building with a crenellated tower containing the engraving and lithography departments fronted Lafayette Avenue, while the printing presses were housed in a larger interior three-story rear building with sawtooth skylights that flooded the spaces with glare-free northern light. Massive brick piers articulate the street fa�ade, contributing to the building's fortress-like character. Two thousand employees worked in the factory which was considered the most advanced printing plant of the time. The building was designated a New York City landmark in 2009 and will be renovated for mixed office and retail uses.
