20 Exchange Place, originally the City Bank–Farmers Trust Building, is a skyscraper in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. Completed in 1931, it was designed by Cross & Cross as the headquarters of the City Bank–Farmers Trust Company, predecessor of Citigroup. Rising about with 57 usable stories, it was one of the city's tallest buildings and the world's tallest stone-clad building upon its completion. Plans to build it as the world's tallest building were scaled back because of the Great Depression.
The building has a granite and limestone facade and a steel superstructure. The lower section of the facade fills an irregular quadrilateral city block and contains piers with figures depicting the "giants of finance", as well as decorations designed by the British sculptor David Evans. The main entrance on Exchange Place has a round arch with granite medallions representing the countries where City Bank Farmers Trust had offices. The upper stories, consisting of a square tower with chamfered corners, are offset from the base.
The City Bank–Farmers Trust Building was built between 1930 and 1931 for the newly merged National City Bank of New York and the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company. It remained the company's headquarters until 1956 and was sold in 1979. The 16th through 57th floors of the building, originally used as offices, were converted to residences by Metro Loft Management during the 1990s. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 20 Exchange Place a city landmark in 1996, and it is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district created in 2007.
Site 20 Exchange Place occupies an entire city block in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. It is an irregular quadrilateral, bounded by Exchange Place to the north, Hanover Street to the east, Beaver Street to the south, and William Street to the west. The surrounding street grid, built as part of the colony of New Amsterdam, remains mostly as documented in the 17th-century Castello Plan. Nearby buildings include 55 Wall Street and 60 Wall Street to the north; 63 Wall Street to the northeast; 1 Wall Street Court to the east; 56 Beaver Street and 1 William Street to the southwest; and 15 William and the Broad Exchange Building to the west.
The first recorded structure on the site was the house of Dutch ship's carpenter Tymen Jansen, built in the 17th century. By the 1890s, the block was occupied by larger buildings. Shortly before the construction of 20 Exchange Place, the block contained four structures: two 10-story buildings on William Street, one 9-story building on Hanover Street, and one 15-story building extending between Beaver Street and Exchange Place.
Architecture The City Bank–Farmers Trust Building was designed by Cross & Cross and constructed by the George A. Fuller Company. George Maguolo was the chief designer, while Moran & Proctor were the engineers for the foundation and tower. Cross & Cross described the building as having no particular architectural style, although the firm said its client, the City Bank-Farmers Trust Company, "will always want a tie with the past". Some observers characterized the building as an Art Deco structure, while others described it as having a "modern classic" style with minimal Art Deco ornamentation, Emporis, The Skyscraper Center, and author Dirk Stichweh say the building stands tall with 57 usable stories; according to the first two sources, the antenna rises to . Various other figures for the building's height are cited:
: New York City Department of Buildings records cited by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission with 54 usable stories: 1931 articles in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal with 59 stories: a 2008 article by Christopher Gray of The New York Times with 54 stories: 2001 book by Daniel M. Abramson
The base of the building fills the entire block and is shaped as a keystone. There are three setbacks between the base and tower portions of 20 Exchange Place, including at the 19th and 21st floors. The tower portion, rising above the 21st floor, is octagonal in plan, with four chamfered corners interspersed between four longer sides. Only the William Street elevation of the base is parallel to the tower, creating the effect of an offset tower; a similar design was used at 19 Rector Street and 26 Broadway. When 20 Exchange Place was completed, the Architectural Forum wrote that the building avoided "exaggeration of forms for originality's sake alone".
Facade The facade was made almost entirely of white Rockwood Alabama stone (a type of oolitic limestone quarried in Alabama), though the first story is clad with Mohegan granite. Some of gray- and blue-tinted stone was quarried from Alabama and brought to New York in pieces weighing up to . The stone weighs in total. British sculptor David Evans was hired to design much of the lower stories' decoration. In contrast to older classical-style buildings but similar to other early-20th-century skyscrapers such as 70 Pine Street, the facade of 20 Exchange Place was designed as a "flowing unified surface" and was not visually linked to its superstructure, or interior frame.
Entrances
The entrances are designed with nickel-silver doors rather than bronze doors; one source attributed this to the architects' desire to avoid using "colored metal". The main entrance, on the Exchange Place elevation, has a round arch surrounded by eleven granite medallions, representing the countries where City Bank Farmers Trust operated offices. There are also granite medallions flanking and above the arch, as well as the National City Bank's seal at the top left and the National City Company's seal at the top right. Two vertical illuminated signs, one on either side of the arch, contain the word "Twenty". Within this arch, there are steps leading to doors underneath a large grouping of windows, while a lamp hangs from a soffit at the top of the arch's ceiling.
Another entrance faces the corner of Exchange Place and William Street. It has four doors made of silver and an alloy of bronze, zinc, and copper, with bronze trim. The doors each contain three panels showing different modes of transportation. Above the outer doors are nickel silver panels with allegorical bronze figures, one symbolizing banking and the other symbolizing abundance; both are surrounded by animal and floral figures. Glass panes above the doors and panels are separated by mullions ornamented with industry symbols. A seal of City Bank Farmers Trust and a flagpole are mounted above the entrance. This led to City Bank Farmers Trust's main banking space.
At Beaver and William Streets is a third entrance; it is similar to the entrance at Exchange Place and William Street but has only two paneled doors. The doors and the panels above the doors are surrounded by a granite frame. The glass panes above the granite frame do not have ornamented mullions.
A fourth entrance faces Beaver Street and consists of three round arches with carved surroundings. The center arch is a service entrance and has another carved surround with a small pediment above the door, consisting of snakes flanking a bison head above the door. The side arches each have four nickel-silver doors underneath marble-and-glass transoms. There is also a medallion above the center arch.
Centered on the Hanover Street elevation is a fifth entrance, consisting of an arched opening with a carved surround. Similar to the entrance at Exchange Place and William Street, there are four paneled doors, as well as nickel silver panels above the doors and a set of glass panes above the doors and panels separated by ornamental mullions. When the building opened, the Canadian Bank of Commerce used a banking space accessible from this entrance.
Other base elements On the William Street, Beaver Street, and Exchange Place elevations, the lowest two stories of the base have several double-height window openings, all of which contain a silver grille at the bottom and keystones above the top center. There are smaller square-headed windows at the extreme ends of all of the building's elevations, including the Hanover Street side. On William Street, the only side that does not have a direct entrance, there are five large window openings. The Beaver Street elevation has seven large windows: three to the west of the entrance and four to the east. The Exchange Place elevation has three large windows east of the center archway and one large window to the west, as well as an additional two small windows on either side of the arch. The Hanover Place entrance is flanked by the smaller windows.
The rest of the base contains relatively little decoration, with sash windows on each floor. The 4th floor contains small rectangular openings, and the 5th floor contains single windows or pairs of windows separated by geometric panels and topped by a boxy cornice with geometric shapes. Between the 6th and 17th stories, the spandrels between the windows on each floor are made of either blue-pearl granite or aluminum, and many spandrels have medallions. Piers subdivide the windows into either singular or paired groupings. The spandrels are decorated with motifs themed to agriculture, such as wheat sheaves and flower heads. Other motifs on the spandrels include balancing scales resembling trade, hourglasses resembling investment, and eagles and fasces resembling government.
Tower elements
There are fourteen figures on the 19th floor, corresponding to the piers directly in front of the tower. The figures, designed by David Evans, contain representations of "giants of finance"; half are depicted with scowls, while the other half have smiles. These faces allude to a prophecy made by biblical figure Joseph, who predicted that "seven years of plenty" would precede "seven years of famine". The piers also aesthetically separated the base and tower, as well as symbolized the bull (growing) and bear (declining) markets of finance. The intake pipes for the building's heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system are concealed behind the spandrels, while the exhaust pipes are behind the giants of finance. A 2022 article in The New York Times characterized the giants of finance as being "Assyrian-style busts". The outermost piers are topped by eagles on the 17th floor. At the highest setback, buttresses transfer some of the upper-story loads to the base.
The upper floors contain sparse decoration as well. Between the sash windows on each floor are aluminum spandrels, many of which also contain medallions. These windows are grouped into three pairs per side. They are separated by projecting piers, which rise to the top of the tower. The corners of the tower are chamfered, with one window on each floor. At the 29th, 39th, 48th, and 55th stories, there are ashlar bands between each floor, instead of aluminum spandrels. The 55th through 57th stories contain three tall arches on each side. The arches are underneath the two-tiered "crown", which has communications equipment. The crown is similar in design to that of the General Electric Building, also designed by Cross and Cross, at 570 Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.
Features The underlying ground contained quicksand and water, as well as foundations from the previous buildings on the site, and the entire city block was irregularly shaped. As a result, the building used cross-lot bracing as well as a heavy steel frame. The building's foundation descends below the curb and includes four or five basement levels. The two lowest basement floors were dug out of the bedrock, which extended below the depth of the groundwater. The basement also had to avoid a nearby New York City Subway line.