The Brooklyn Trust Company Building is a bank and residential building at 177 Montague Street in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City, New York, U.S. Constructed for the Brooklyn Trust Company from 1913 to 1916, it occupies a site between Montague Street to the south, Clinton Street to the west, and Pierrepont Street to the north. The Brooklyn Trust Company Building was designed by York and Sawyer in the Renaissance Revival style and is patterned after the Palazzo della Gran Guardia in the Italian city of Verona. The building's facade and interior are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The building is divided into two parts: the main section to the west and an annex on Pierrepont Street to the east. The three-story base of the main building, as well as the annex, are clad with rusticated stone blocks. There are double-height arches facing all three streets; the arches on Montague and Pierrepont Streets contain ornate entrances. The fourth and fifth stories are treated like a loggia, with windows separated by pilasters, while the roof is made of Spanish tile. Inside, entrances on Montague and Pierrepont Street lead to ornamental vestibules. The rectangular banking room next to Clinton Street has Cosmati marble floors, yellow-beige marble walls, and a colorful vaulted ceiling. The building originally had additional offices on the ground, fourth, and fifth stories, as well as two bank vaults in the basement. Although the banking hall still serves as a Chase Bank branch, the upper stories contain 12 condominium apartments.
The Brooklyn Trust Company had occupied the corner of Montague and Clinton Streets since 1873 and had grown significantly over the next half-century. The bank acquired the Brooklyn Club's adjacent clubhouse in 1913 and constructed a new headquarters in two phases, which were completed by September 1916. The upper floors were originally rented out as offices, while the bank occupied the ground floor. Through several mergers, the Brooklyn Trust Company became part of JPMorgan Chase, which sold the building in 2007. The structure has been owned since 2009 by the Stahl Organization, which converted the upper floors to condos between 2012 and 2015.
Site
The Brooklyn Trust Company Building is located in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City. It occupies a narrow land lot on the east side of Clinton Street, between Montague Street to the south and Pierrepont Street to the north. The site covers an area of . It has frontage of on Clinton Street, on Pierrepont Street, and on Montague Street; the easternmost part of the Pierrepont Street frontage extends only into the block. It adjoins the People's Trust Building and 185 Montague Street to the east, although the bank buildings have different architectural styles.; Other nearby buildings include the Montague–Court Building at the eastern end of the block; the Brooklyn Union Gas Company Headquarters one block southeast; the Center for Brooklyn History building and the St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church, just across Clinton Street to the west; and the Crescent Athletic Club House of Saint Ann's School, to the northwest across Clinton and Pierrepont Streets. An entrance to the New York City Subway's Borough Hall/Court Street station is across the street from the building's Montague Street entrance.
The Brooklyn Trust Company Building site was historically owned by Hezekiah Pierrepont, one of Brooklyn Heights' developers; Pierrepont Street was named for him, while Montague Street was named for his relative Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Just prior to the construction of the current building, the corner of Clinton and Montague Streets was occupied by a house, which had been built in the 1850s as the residence of politician George Taylor and became the bank's headquarters in 1873. During the 1860s and early 1870s, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn Mercantile Library, and Brooklyn Art Association all had developed buildings on the adjoining block of Montague Street, which ran between Clinton and Court Streets. The Brooklyn Club occupied the site directly to the north of Taylor's house, on Pierrepont Street; the Greenleaf Female Institute had occupied this site in the mid-19th century. An increasing number of businesses were moving to the area by the 1890s, and the adjacent block of Montague Street was nicknamed "Bank Row" after several bank buildings were built there in the 1900s.;
Architecture The Brooklyn Trust Company Building was designed by bank architects York and Sawyer for the Brooklyn Trust Company.; The building's design was inspired by that of the Palazzo della Gran Guardia in the northern Italian city of Verona. When the building was erected in the 1910s, freestanding bank buildings in New York City were becoming prevalent, and many similar structures were being constructed with classical design details. After designing the Brooklyn Trust Company Building, York and Sawyer used a similar architectural style for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building and the Apple Bank Building, both in Manhattan.
Despite only appearing as a four-story structure, the Brooklyn Trust Company Building is five stories tall (including its annex). Due to the height of each story, the building is equivalent to a seven-story building. The roof of the main structure is covered with green tiles. The Brooklyn Trust Company Building's facade and interior are both protected as New York City landmarks, and the structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
Facade The facade, designed in the Italian Renaissance style, is made of limestone and granite and is divided horizontally into two sections. The ground and third stories comprise the base, which is clad in blocks of rusticated and vermiculated limestone above a pink-granite water table. Although the ground-floor banking hall corresponds to the first and second stories of the annex, the New York City Department of Buildings considers the banking hall to be one story. The fourth and fifth stories are treated as a piano nobile and contain a colonnade of double-height engaged columns and pilasters in the Corinthian order, which in turn are made of smooth limestone. At the northeast corner of the building, there is a three-bay-wide annex with a rusticated limestone facade.
Montague Street
On the Montague Street elevation of the facade, the main decorative element is a round arch at the center, which is accessed by a stoop; with five steps. The stoop is flanked by stone pedestals with cast-iron torchères measuring high. The base of each torchère contains a layer of lions, which supports a layer of tortoises. Above the tortoises are motifs such as volutes, acanthus leaves, flowers, and fruits. The shaft of each torchère is decorated with motifs of birds and leaves, supporting a globe-shaped lamp at the top.; The entryway itself is recessed and consists of a set of double-height wrought-iron gates with foliate ornament, as well as a set of inner doors made of bronze and glass. When the bank is open, the wrought-iron gates retract into a rectangular Roman Imperial-style frame made of fine-grained limestone. This frame contains rinceaux with scrolled acanthuses, as well as motifs of flowers, birds, animals, and urns with centaur-like figures on either side.
On the facade, at ground level, there is one rectangular window with a metal grille on either side of the centrally positioned entryway, as well as voussoirs in the lintel above the window; the central voussoir is a slightly protruding keystone. Above these rectangular windows, there are square windows on the mezzanine with similar voussoirs, and a flagpole extends outward from the central voussoir. At the mezzanine level, there is a lunette atop the arch, divided into three sections by vertical bands, which contains a stone grille with floral and urn patterns. The middle of the lunette has a plaque with the words "Erected MCMXV", topped by an eagle with spread wings, while the outer sections of the lunette contain scrolled acanthus-leaf motifs which flank the plaque. Atop this lunette is a cartouche of a shield with a carved eagle and inscriptions of two years in Roman numerals: MDCCCLXVI (1866), when the Brooklyn Trust Company received its charter, and MCMXV (1915), when the building was finished.; The shield is topped by a winged helmet, which in turn is flanked by a set of interlocking key designs.
The piano nobile consists of a colonnade of three bays on the fourth and fifth stories. Each bay contains a two-over-two sash window; dark-red marble spandrels between the fourth- and fifth-story windows; and balustrades in front of each fourth-story window. Corinthian engaged columns separate each of the bays, and there are pilasters flanking the entire colonnade, as well as on either end of the facade. There is a frieze above the fifth story, with urns separating square panels and reliefs on the frieze. The panels contain inscriptions with the names "Greenpoint–Flatbush–Wallabout" on the left (west) and "Breucklyn–New Lots–Red Hook" on the right (east), all in capital letters. These names represent towns and villages that were integrated into modern-day Brooklyn. Just below the roof is a cornice with denticulation and water spouts with lions' heads. The top story is under the tiled roof.
Clinton Street
The Clinton Street elevation is divided horizontally into two sections, similar to the Pierrepont and Montague Street elevations. The base is divided horizontally into nine bays. The two outermost bays contain rectangular windows at ground level and square windows on the third story; these windows have grilles and voussoirs, similar to the outer bays on the other elevations. The seven center bays contain double-height arches with recessed windows. Thick mullions divide the windows into six sections in a three-over-three configuration. Each of the windows has 61 panes in total.; There are painted stone panels beneath the windows, as well as voussoirs above.;
The fourth and fifth stories are divided vertically into fourteen bays. On these stories, the extreme north and south ends of the Clinton Street elevation have pilasters and antae. In the two outermost bays, the fourth-story window has a balustrade and is topped by a cartouche and a triangular pediment. The fifth-story windows of the outermost bays are simple rectangular windows. The twelve center bays form a colonnade on the fourth and fifth stories. Each bay contains a two-over-two sash window, with dark-red marble spandrels between the fourth- and fifth-story windows, as well as balustrades in front of each fourth-story window. Corinthian engaged columns separate each of the bays, and there are pilasters flanking the entire colonnade, as well as on either end of the facade. There is a frieze above the fifth story, with the words "Anno Domini MCMXV" inscribed in capital letters at either end of the facade; these words are flanked by urns. Just below the roof is a cornice with denticulation and water spouts with lions' heads.
Pierrepont Street
The facade of the main building on Pierrepont Street is similar to that on Montague Street, but the entrance is exactly at ground level, and the limestone frame within the arch has acanthus leaves at its base. Instead of torchères, octagonal lanterns are attached directly to the facade, with flowers and leaves topped by a fleur-de-lis pattern. The frieze at the top contains the inscriptions "New Utrecht–Flatland–Breucklyn" on the left (east) and "Gravesend–Gowanus–Bushwick" on the right (east), all in capital letters.;