The Dollar Savings Bank Building is a former bank building at 2516–2530 Grand Concourse in the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, New York, U.S. Constructed for the defunct Dollar Savings Bank in three phases between 1932 and 1952, it was designed by Adolf L. Muller, an associate of Halsey, McCormack & Helmer. The building uses motifs designed in the Art Deco style, with influences from classical architecture. 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 consists of a 1-to-4-story banking wing to the south and a 10-story office wing to the north. The banking wing has a granite facade measuring wide along Grand Concourse, with entrance pavilions to the north and south, flanking large windows in the center. The office wing is clad with granite on its lower stories, with two additional entrances, while the upper stories are clad with brick and architectural terracotta. The northwest corner of the office wing has a clock tower with four faces, protruding above the roof. Inside the banking-hall wing is a double-height column-free space with classical decorations and five murals about the Bronx. The basement has a safe-deposit lobby and was built with offices, storage, and steel vaults. The office wing contains a banking annex, a lobby, and office spaces.
The site was originally part of the estate of John Valentine and acquired by the Dollar Savings Bank in 1932. The first part of the banking hall opened in 1933, and it was expanded northward between 1937 and 1938. Further growth in the bank's business prompted another expansion from 1949 to 1952. The building was acquired by the Dollar Dry Dock Savings Bank in 1983, then the Emigrant Savings Bank in 1992. The two portions of the building came under different ownership in the late 20th and early 21st centuries; the banking hall continued to host a bank, while the office wing housed a social-service agency. In 2013, Ivan Diaz bought both portions. The bank closed in 2014, and the building was redeveloped into a supermarket and dormitory in the 2020s.
Site The Dollar Savings Bank Building is located at 2516–2530 Grand Concourse in the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, New York, U.S. It occupies a city block bounded by Grand Concourse to the west, Fordham Road to the south, Valentine Avenue to the east, and 192nd Street to the north. The surrounding area includes Art Deco apartment buildings rising five to six stories. The building shares the block with the former Concourse Theatre at 2500–2514 Grand Concourse to the south, and an office building at 2540 Grand Concourse to the north. Other nearby buildings include the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage one block north and the Paradise Theater two blocks south.
Architecture The Dollar Savings Bank Building was developed in three phases dating from 1932–1933, 1937–1938, and 1949–1952, all designed by the firm of Halsey, McCormack & Helmer. The firm had previously designed several other banks, including the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, the Onondaga County Savings Bank Building, and the Dime Savings Bank Building's 1930s expansion, all in New York state. Of the architects at Halsey, McCormack & Helmer, Adolf L. Muller (sometimes spelled Adolph) had the greatest involvement with all three sections. The motifs are designed in the Art Deco style, but it uses overscaled proportions and monolithic granite slabs, which are more typical of classical architecture.
Facade The building consists of a low-rise banking hall wing to the south and a 10-story office wing to the north. The banking hall wing is two to three stories high along its front (western) elevation, and there are one- and four-story-high additions along its rear (eastern) elevation. The three phases were constructed sequentially from south to north; the banking hall wing was constructed during the first and second phases, while the office wing was built during the third phase. The southernmost (first) and northernmost (third) sections each have a frontage of on Grand Concourse, while the central section has a frontage. In both the banking hall and office wings, the western elevation is clad in polished pink granite to the third floor. Other parts of the facade are clad in brick and architectural terracotta.
Banking hall wing
The banking hall's facade measures wide along Grand Concourse. The banking room's western elevation has entrance pavilions at its southern and northern ends, which are identical and protrude slightly from the facade. Both entrance pavilions have recessed double-height openings. The lower portion of each opening contains a smaller granite enframement with embedded brass-and-glass vitrines, which each flank a set of bronze doors.; Above each set of doors are transom windows within bronze frames, along with granite pediments containing clock faces. The upper half of each opening has a large window with steel sash and bronze grilles. Geometric granite canopies protrude above each opening; the soffit, or underside, of each canopy has opaque glass panels inset within a grid of bronze strips. The soffits have downlights and formerly included pendants. A depiction of a Liberty Head dollar is mounted onto the attic above each entrance.
The southern banking hall entrance, part of the first phase, was originally symmetrically flanked by shorter pylon-shaped bays. The right-side (southern) bay, the only one that remains intact, contains a protruding flagpole, while the left-side (northern) bay was demolished with the second-phase expansion. This expansion includes the wall separating the two banking-hall entrances, which is divided into three bays. Each bay has multi-paned sash windows spanning the first and second stories, each with bronze grilles and mullions. There are buttresses and reliefs between each opening. Above the windows, the attic has plaques with inscriptions relating to thrift. The southern elevation is a party wall, with an granite return at its western end, wrapping around from the front elevation. The rest of the southern elevation is made of brick, with sash windows, and originally contained signage for the banks inside.
Office wing
The office wing consists of ten office stories. The lower stories have a granite facade, and there is an office entrance in the northernmost bay of the front elevation.; This entrance has brass-and-glass doors, a bronze transom, a granite architrave, and a pediment with the Dollar Savings Bank's name inscribed on it. The southern bay originally functioned as a fourth window, but in 2018 it was converted into a doorway with aluminum-and-glass panes above. Like the center bays in the banking wing, this bay is topped by an inscribed plaque.
Above the base, the office wing's facade is made of brick, which is variously cited as being orange, or a mixture of rose and light-red. The upper facade is accented with terracotta trim. A four-sided clock campanile occupies the northwest corner of the office wing (directly above the office entrance), rising another from the office stories' roof. All four facades of the campanile contain buttresses, which extend to just below the clock faces. Each of the clock faces is in diameter and has bronze and glass decorations. East of the campanile, the office wing's roof has a brick bulkhead containing elevator equipment.
The office wing's western elevation is divided into five bays on the third through tenth stories. The four southern bays are separated vertically by brick piers, and the sash windows on each story are separated horizontally by pink spandrel panels made of terracotta. A Liberty Head plaque is installed above the tenth story.; The western elevation's northernmost bay, within the campanile, is recessed between two buttresses, which rise from the street. There are sash windows on the remaining elevations of the office wing. The southern elevation is designed in a similar manner to the western elevation's four southern bays, with brick piers and terracotta spandrels; the top of this elevation was formerly surmounted by signage advertising the banks inside. The eastern elevation has four setbacks. The northern elevation is mostly windowless, as the interior elevators and stairs are directly behind the campanile's north wall.
Interior The building has a steel skeletal frame, which is hidden behind the decorations on the facade. The party wall and the granite return conceal the banking room's trusses, and the piers and spandrels on the office wing hide the steel frame used in that section. The double-height banking hall dates from the first two phases of the building's construction. The banking hall is connected to a one-story banking annex in the office tower.
Banking hall
The banking hall is a large column-free space with classical decorations. As built, it was oriented east–west, with clerestory windows on the northern and southern walls. The original banking hall had a central public space, tellers' counters to the north and south, and executive offices to the east. The banking hall was extended north in the second phase of construction, giving it a north–south orientation. To compensate for the removal of the original northern wall, there are trusses supporting the attic above the banking hall, and the current northern wall is embedded within another truss.
The banking hall is reached from vestibules, which connect with the two entrance pavilions on Grand Concourse. There are slight variations in the vestibules' designs because the street slopes upward slightly toward the north. Within the northern vestibule, two steps from the banking hall ascend to the sidewalk level and are flanked by brass rails. Both vestibules have brass panels and brass ventilation grilles. On the eastern wall of each vestibule, three brass-and-glass doors open into the banking hall topped by transom windows. Above the windows are brass or bronze transom bars, which contain the inscription "Dollar Savings Bank", an inset clock, and meander motifs.
The banking hall's floor surface is a dark-colored grid with light granite panels inside. Polished concrete is used for the floors in the room's northern and western sides, which contained tellers' counters until the third phase was built in 1949–1952. The western and eastern walls have red marble pilasters. There are double-height windows between the western wall's pilasters and limestone cladding along the remainders of the walls. On all walls except the western, there is a frieze and an architrave, which separate the lower portion of the wall from the upper, clerestory portion. At clerestory level, the corners of the room are chamfered. The northern and southern walls have clerestory windows between large terracotta corbels, which look out onto outdoor spaces to the south and offices to the north. The eastern wall has five murals about the Bronx's history, which were designed by Italian artisan Angelo Magnanti and installed in pieces through 1957. The room has a decorative plaster ceiling with ribs dividing the surface into panels. Decorations such as rosettes are placed at the intersections of ribs, and the ceiling also has silver-gilt and gold leaf decorations and cylindrical chandeliers. Between some of the ribs are acoustic ceiling tiles, which date from the third phase of construction.
Other spaces