The Bowery Savings Bank Building, also known as 130 Bowery, is an event venue and former bank building in the Little Italy and Chinatown neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Constructed for the defunct Bowery Savings Bank from 1893 to 1895, it occupies an L-shaped site bounded by Bowery to the east, Grand Street to the south, and Elizabeth Street to the west. The Bowery Savings Bank Building was designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White. Since 2002, it has hosted an event venue called Capitale. 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's basement is clad with a granite water table, while the superstructure is clad with Indiana limestone. The exterior features Corinthian columns and sculpted pediments by Frederic MacMonnies. The main entrance is through a triumphal arch on the relatively narrow Bowery elevation, which is designed to resemble a Corinthian temple. The Grand Street and Elizabeth Street elevations contain Corinthian pilasters, and there is a secondary entrance portico on Grand Street. The interior was designed to give the impression of a Roman temple, with a waiting room to the east and a banking room to the west. Both spaces are decorated with mosaic-tile floors and marble colonnades, and the banking room also features a double-height coffered ceiling with a square skylight. A bank vault and offices for the president and secretary were to the west of the banking room, while a director's room was placed above the waiting room.
The Bowery Savings Bank was founded in 1834, occupying a house at 128 Bowery; this structure was replaced with a larger building in 1853. The bank acquired additional land through the late 19th century and announced plans for a new headquarters in 1891. Construction on the banking room commenced in May 1893, and the banking hall opened in June 1894. The waiting room was built as part of a second phase that was completed in 1895. The building remained relatively unchanged in the 20th century as the Bowery Savings Bank continued to expand. The Bowery Savings Bank's successor company, Greenpoint Bank, sold the building to Jeffrey Wu in 2000. The Capitale event venue opened in October 2002, and the building was sold again in 2017 and 2025.
Site The Bowery Savings Bank Building is on 130 Bowery, in the Little Italy and Chinatown neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The L-shaped building is bounded by Bowery to the east, Grand Street to the south, and Elizabeth Street to the west. It wraps around the Bowery Bank of New York Building at 124 Bowery, which occupies the northwest corner of Bowery and Grand Street. It consists of two primary sections: an eastern portion on Bowery, measuring wide and deep, and a western portion on Grand and Elizabeth Streets, measuring 100 by 100 feet. This gives the site a total depth of between Bowery and Elizabeth Street. The site covers . Because of the street grid of the surrounding neighborhood, none of the building's sides are parallel.
The current building is the third to be built for the Bowery Savings Bank on the same site. It was built on an assemblage of six land lots: two on Bowery and four on Elizabeth and Grand Streets. The lot at 128 Bowery was previously occupied by the Butchers' and Drovers' Bank, which had been founded in 1830 and later became the Bowery Savings Bank's first building on the site. This structure had been torn down to make way for the Bowery Savings Bank's second building, which opened in 1853. The four lots on Elizabeth and Grand Streets had contained houses until 1893.
Architecture The Bowery Savings Bank Building was designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White and was built between 1893 and 1895. The contractor was David H. King Jr. It was one of three major bank buildings that White designed during the 1890s recession, the others being the New York Life Building at 346 Broadway and the State Savings Bank of Detroit. The building is designed in the Classical Revival and Beaux-Arts styles. According to architectural historian Leland M. Roth, the building was "designed to stimulate and elevate", similarly to McKim, Mead & White's designs for the Boston Public Library and the World's Columbian Exposition.
Facade The building's facade is split into two sections: the Bowery elevation and the connected Grand Street and Elizabeth Street elevations. The exterior features Corinthian columns and sculpted pediments by Frederic MacMonnies. According to Stanford White's descendants, the building's exterior "invoked the authority of ancient Rome" with its design details, including porticos on Bowery and on Grand Street. Wrought iron grilles are also placed in front of numerous windows and doors. The building's basement is clad with a granite water table, while the superstructure is clad with Indiana limestone. In addition, the roof is largely covered with Roman tile, except above the banking room, where there is a glass skylight with metal ribs.
Bowery The main entrance is through the relatively narrow Bowery elevation. The facade consists of a triumphal arch, which in turn is surrounded by a frame that is designed like a Corinthian temple. The spandrels of the arch contain roundel motifs, while the arch's keystone is a console bracket. The entrance is recessed within the arch, accessed by a set of steps leading up from Bowery. The space under the arch contains mosaic floors and a coffered ceiling, while the entrance itself is via two small doors. The steps are flanked by a pair of Corinthian columns and flat pilasters. Iron lamps and bronze signs are also placed next to the entrance.
Above the columns and pilasters is an architrave with acroteria. The center of the architrave contains a tablet surrounded by floral motifs; the words "The Bowery Savings Bank" are inscribed on the tablet in capital letters. The architrave is topped by a triangular pediment with a sculpture by MacMonnies. The pediment depicts a clock flanked by two figures, each accompanied by a lion. The figures, depicting a man and woman, represent the concepts of time and industry. The attic of the Bowery elevation rises above the pediment. There are three anthemion-shaped acroteria on the attic: one on either end of the facade and one directly above the center of the pediment. In addition, the attic is decorated with lions' masks and antefixes.
Grand Street and Elizabeth Street
The Grand Street and Elizabeth Street elevations are connected, but the decorations on both elevations do not wrap around the corner. According to architectural critic Russell Sturgis, this was done not only to give the impression of an "applied facade" but also to hide the fact that the two streets met at an obtuse angle. Both elevations contain Corinthian pilasters, which divide either elevation into five bays. Except for the center bay on Grand Street, each bay contains a large aedicular window at ground level, above which is a plaque or a smaller window. The windows are covered by metal grilles, and a cornice runs above the attic on both elevations.
The center bay on Grand Street contains a secondary doorway, which has iron lamps and bronze signs. Above the secondary entrance on Grand Street is a slightly projecting portico, which is similar in design to the pediment over the Bowery entrance. The portico is supported by four columns, which are directly in front of the pilasters on the Grand Street elevation. MacMonnies designed a similar pedimental sculpture for the Grand Street portico. The pediment on Grand Street contains two female figures with lions, in contrast to the Bowery pediment. One of the women is depicted placing a laurel of garlands over her lion's head, while the other woman is depicted placing ribbons on her lion.
Interior The interior was intended to give the impression of a Roman temple. The L-shaped space consists of a waiting room to the east and a banking room to the west. The banking room features a double-height coffered ceiling with a square skylight, supported by double-height Corinthian columns. Marble is used extensively in the teller's counters, walls, and mosaic floors. In addition, White employed stairs and skylights made of cast iron. The skylights allowed natural light into the building, while cast-iron registers and radiators, integrated with the rest of the bank's design, respectively provided hot air and hot water. The basement contained a restaurant, an electric plant, and boilers, in addition to heavyweight safes.
After the building was converted into an event venue in 2002, a VIP seating area with a fireplace was placed one story above the main banking room. In addition, several spaces next to the banking room, including the former vault, were converted into private party rooms.
Waiting room Because the Bowery Savings Bank was mostly intended for working-class clients, White designed a waiting room on the narrower eastern section of the plot. The rectangular space measures and contains two colonnades of six columns each, which divide the northern and southern sides of the room into five bays. The colonnades separated the main section of the room from "aisles" to the north and south. Because the layout resembled that of a basilica, the space was nicknamed "the Chapel". The waiting room was used mainly by customers who were withdrawing money, since the process for withdrawals was extremely laborious. Above the waiting room was a directors' room.
The waiting room's floor is made of mosaic tiles. The floor largely consists of gray and white tesserae, although there are marble floor slabs between the columns on the north and south walls. The floor is surrounded by red, orange, yellow, and black tesserae, which are arranged in classical-style check, meander, and wave patterns. Two revolving doors lead from the Bowery entrance on the east; originally, men used the northern door and women used the southern door. Both sets of revolving doors are made of sheet metal and are flanked by Corinthian pilasters with brass capitals. A railing formerly divided the room into a northern section for men and a southern section for women.
The columns on the north and south walls rest on white-marble pedestals and are made of black-veined marble, which has been repainted. The columns contain Ionic capitals. In the center three bays on the north and south walls, there were seating areas with railings. The walls are wainscoted in marble, above which are panels decorated with fretwork and floral motifs. The southern wall contains an elevator, which was installed after the building's completion but harmonizes with the original design. The ceiling is divided into panels and is also decorated with fretwork and floral motifs. The central bay includes cast-iron ceiling grilles, which originally concealed a skylight that abutted the second-story committee and trustees' rooms. Each of the grilles is made of cast iron and consists of a meander-patterned border, a central rosette, and a glazed panel that conceals a cast-iron grid. Hanging from the center of the ceiling, in each bay, are cylindrical brass fixtures with indirect lighting; these fixtures were designed in 1980 by the Rambusch Decorating Company.
Banking room