The Lost 1824 Phenix Bank Building - Wall Street and Broad

Martin E. Thompson's white marble edifice was perfectly proportioned.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In 1812 the Phoenix Bank was established and within only a few years became one of New York City's principal financial institutions.  Along with other banks, it established a branch far to the north in Greenwich Village at the time of the devastating yellow fever epidemic of 1822.  The concentration of these branches on one street, far away from the dangerous conditions, led to its being renamed Bank Street.  By now Phenix Bank had lost its "o."

Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, it was about the same time that Phenix Bank began construction of its noble new headquarters on the south side of Wall Street near the corner of Broad.  The bank commissioned architect Martin Euclid Thompson to design its building.  Thompson had been a partner with Ithiel Town and both architects were influential in the introduction of the Greek temple style.

The completed Phenix Bank building is credited by some historians as the first example of the Greek temple style to appear on Wall Street.  Perfectly proportioned, it featured an impressive portico of four fluted, Doric columns.  A classic triangular pediment perched above the Grecian-style entablature.

The Phenix Bank narrowly escaped destruction on December 16, 1835 when fire broke out in the store of Comstock & Andrews at No. 25 Merchant Street.  Before morning 13 acres of downtown Manhattan had been burned; 528 structures were destroyed and the total lose was estimated at $17 million.  The inferno had stopped at Wall and Williams Street at the opposite end of the block from the Phenix Bank.

Former mansions, converted for business purposes, abutted the bank building.  print from the collection of the New York Public Library

It was not fire nor even financial panic that most threatened the institution--it was corruption.  On March 1, 1838 readers of the Morning Herald learned that Senator Verplanck had opened a state investigation "into certain charges against the Phenix Bank of the city of New York."  The list of accusations which included overcharging on exchange rates was so lengthy that the newspaper simply wrote "&c. &c."  (The exchange rates mentioned involved the various currencies of states and territories--it would not be until February 25, 1863 that the National Currency Act established the federal dollar.)  The senator's push for an investigation was followed by one in the House by Representative Willis Hall.

The ugly and widely-publicized affair developed into the case of The People vs. Phenix Bank.  The Morning Herald went to the bank's defense, asserting on March 31 that every bank on Wall Street conducted business exactly as did the Phenix Bank.  "If, therefore, the transactions of the Phenix Bank in exchange are sufficient cause for the legislature to take away its charter...in effect, every charter of Wall street [would be] declared forfeited, and the great bulk of the exchange transactions, foreign and domestic, are tainted with usury, fraud and extortion."

The newspaper added "But this is not all."  The editors alleged "the movement against the Phenix Bank" was the result of "private malice and revenge" of the Whig Committee, "the omnipotent power of a party invoked to carry out the game of destruction."

The turmoil ended on April 5 when the Whigs and the Board of Trade were victorious in forcing out bank President John Delafield.   On that day he tendered his letter of resignation which began "Having been assured that the present hostility to the Phenix Bank has its origin in enmity to myself, and that unless I am sacrificed, the interest of the stockholders and of the commercial community will suffer serious consequences; I am willing, though conscious of the rectitude and legality of all my operations, to offer up my office."

In reporting on his resignation, the Morning Herald was indignant.  "A more paltry, personal, and vindictive crusade was never undertaken than the one set on foot by the Board of Trade against Mr. Delafield."

Bank security in 1842 was weak, certainly in comparison to the alarms, plexiglass partitions and surveillance cameras patrons are accustomed to today.  And so it was easy for Thomas Conroy and Charles Wheeler to rob the Phenix Bank of $1,900 (about $57,000 in 2016 dollars) in February that year.

The New York Herald reported "The money missed from the Phenix Bank was in Highland Bank notes...and had been placed in a package on the inside of the bank counter on the day it was stolen."  On March 6 the newspaper noted "It was ascertained a few days after that the rogues who took it had proceeded to the Long Island Bank, at Brooklyn, and obtained other notes in exchange."

Not long after the incident the Phenix Bank laid plans for an updated headquarters at the corner of Wall and William Streets.  On September 13, 1845 The New York Herald mentioned "The building of the Phenix Bank, in Wall street, is rapidly progressing.  A good part of the front is already raised.  The whole front is to be of pecked brown freestone, and will present a neat and substantial appearance."

The new brownstone-clad Phenix Bank building as it appeared in 1855.  In the foreground, part of the 1841 Merchants Exchange building can be seen.  The Bankers' Magazine, June 1855 (copyright expired)

The old Greek temple-style building survived until 1872 when it was demolished along with six other structures to make way for the marble Drexel Building, designed by Arthur Gilman.  That building was razed in 1912 to be replaced by the still-standing J. P. Morgan & Co. building designed by Trowbridge & Livingston.

photo from the collection of the Library of Congress

The 1843 Governor's Island "Admiral's House"

Well before the eruption of the Revolutionary War, the incalculable defensive significance of the island in the middle of New York Harbor was recognized.   The Dutch, the British and now the rebelling colonists all maintained fortifications here.

After the Revolution, military structures continued to be built. Fort Jay, surrounded by a 13-foot moat was constructed in 1806 and one-by-one additional buildings were erected to accommodate the military presence. The United States Army took possession of the island in 1821 and in the early 1840s commissioned architect Martin E. Thompson to design a residence equal to the status of its most ranking officer. Called The Commanding Officer’s Quarters it was completed in 1843, a large brick Greek Revival home with a two-story porches, front and rear.

Thompson created a Colonial Revival entrance with pilasters and flanking sidelights, a paneled door and leaded transom. The long, floor-to-ceiling windows on the parlor level gave added elegance to the interior.

photo NYPL Collection

The Commanding Officer’s Quarters became home, over the years, to renowned generals; among them
Walter Bedell Smith, Winfield Scott Hancock, Adna Chafee, Leonard Wood, Robert Bullar and Jonathan Wainwright.

In 1886 the house was enlarged with an architecturally cohesive wing at the southwest corner and, later, the exterior was redesigned with the porches being replaced by wide verandas -- creating a plantation house effect. Again, in 1936, the exterior was renovated when Charles O. Cornelius removed the peaked roof, replaced the rear wooden porch elements with brick and added decorative ironwork.

photo NYPL Collection

In 1966 the Army left Governor’s Island, turning it over to the United States Coast guard which headquartered its Third Coast Guard District and the Atlantic Area here, creating the largest Coast Guard base in the world. The Commanding Officer’s Quarters was renamed The Admiral’s House.

After addressing the United Nations General Assembly regarding "perestroika" on December 7, 1988, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev boarded a ferry to Governor’s Island to meet with President Ronald Reagan. The two leaders met in the Admiral’s House where the two worked out important steps to the end of the Cold War.

Ironically, the subsequent Peace Dividend between the two countries resulted in the closing of the Coast Guard Base in 1966. The Admiral’s House, constantly occupied since 1843, was emptied.

The Admiral’s House , although still eerily empty, is open to the public by the National Park Service.

The 1851 Central Park Arsenal

Troops march off to the Civil War in 1863.  Valentine's Manual of New York City, 1863 (copyright expired)

In 1846 the State of New York authorized the construction of a new munitions depot for New York City’s National Guard.  A site was chosen in the countryside far to the north where it was felt that troops could be easily deployed to either shoreline or south to the city.  Architect Martin E. Thompson designed the structure, a crenellated fortress with half-octagonal towers on either corners.

Construction began in 1847 and was completed four years later.  Based on a medieval gatehouse it was built of grey English bond brick.  The New York Times later described:

…the second floor was reached by iron stairs built on the outside. On the balcony at which the two stairways met was the coat-of-arms of the State of New York in wrought iron and the windows on either side were made narrow and thin like those of a jail. Why New York State built its arsenal of nothing more substantial than brick with its access to it by stairways on the outside where a single cannon shot would destroy them and cut off all access to or egress from the building is one of the great mysteries of New York.

State Controller Millard Fillmore–later to become the 13th President of the United States–oversaw the funding of the $30,000 project.

The new Arsenal, however, sat disruptively within the huge plot that New York City was planning to turn into Central Park.  Two years after the building's completion in 1851, the City began a three-year appropriation of the land it needed.  In 1857 it purchased the Armory from the State for $275,000, emptied it of the munitions and arms, and established the administrative functions of the planned park within it.

As Calvert Vaux’s and Jacob Mould’s fanciful and colorful buildings and terraces took shape on paper, many felt that the medieval and militaristic-looking Armory did not fit in.  In 1859 George Templeton Strong, never one to hold back his opinion, called it the "hideous State Arsenal Building," and (hinting at civic-minded arson) hoped "this eyesore” would “soon be destroyed by accidental fire."

Two years before Strong was voicing his disgust, the 11th Precinct Police Station House had already been established in the Armory.  And in 1859 the police began sharing its space with the new Central Park “Menagerie.”  Cages were erected outside as well as in the basement and exotic animals were donated by philanthropists like August Belmont and showman P. T. Barnum.

A well-dressed couple views eagles in an outdoor exhibition.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

James D. McCabe Jr. wrote:

On the east side of the Park…is an old building which somewhat resembles the Cadet barracks at West Point.  In the lower stories and in several buildings around it is a fine collection of animals, birds, and reptiles, constituting the Menagerie of the Park.  In the winter the collection is greatly enlarged by numerous animals and birds which are sent here for safe keeping by traveling shows which go into quarters in New York during the cold season.  This is a favorite resort with visitors, especially with children, and is always crowded.

The animals and the police were further crowded when, at the outbreak of the Civil War, the Arsenal was pressed into military service again.  The militia was housed in improvised barracks while awaiting deployment to the front.  The grassy area in front of the building became “the parade ground of the scores of regiments passing through the city,” and returning soldiers were quartered here before heading home.

Immediately after the war, the building found yet more new uses.  In 1869, in addition to the menagerie, it housed a new museum which would eventually become the American Museum of Natural History.  Here esteemed British paleontologist B. Waterhouse Hawkins labored, reconstructing the skeletons of dinosaurs in a specially constructed workroom.  A Gallery of Art was established on the first floor that same year and the Municipal Weather Bureau’s instruments were installed on the roof.  The Arsenal was bustling with activity.

In 1870 Jacob Wrey Mould was brought in to redesign the interiors and a year later, faced with numerous complaints about the stench and “great insecurity and danger,” the beloved menagerie was moved out.

Always a point of visual controversy the Arsenal was threatened again in 1912 when Henry Clay Frick proposed to dismantle the old 1877 Lenox Library, now vacant with the opening of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, and re-erect it on the site of the Arsenal.  Frick’s gift was turned down, an act Mayor William J. Gaynor viewed as an insult to Frick and announced that he was “determined” to demolish the Arsenal, calling it “unsanitary and unfit.”  The New York Times chimed in, siding with the Mayor and labeling it “an eyesore, fetid with the smell of the stables and the nearby menagerie,” and saying, “the old structure was never a thing of beauty, even in its palmiest days.”

from the collection of the New York Public Library

Although the building survived the threat, the Parks Department offices left the Arsenal in 1914, moving to the new Municipal Building downtown. The building sat neglected and essentially vacant, other than the weather instruments on the roof.  In 1916 the Department considered razing the building, but, instead, it sat for nearly a decade decaying.

In 1922, The New York Times, which had once so vigorously condemned the Armory, lamented “New York does not destroy its old monuments, it ignores them.  Such has been the fate of one of the oldest structures devoted to public uses in the territory north of Fifty-ninth Street–the Armory in Central Park."  The article continued:

...the first State arsenal erected to safeguard the greatest port in the world and the greatest city in America stands facing palatial and opulent upper Fifth Avenue, dilapidated and deserted, with broken windows, cracked lintels, a rickety iron staircase, uneven board floors and more holes in the roof than there are spots on the skin of the leopard in a cage near by…while 'The Arsenal!' is a sinister monument to the neglect of those charged with its maintenance and preservation.

A contrite city appropriated $75,000 to restore the Arsenal, converting much of the interior space for Parks Department offices.  New turrets and a clock were constructed, and basement storage areas were added.  A secret passage under the building was discovered which was possibly intended for the covert movement of munitions.

photo by Andrew Russeth

A decade later Commissioner Robert Moses supervised yet another complete conversion of the structure installing his office and command center here.  Sandblasting removed decades of paint from the brick and the military-themed details–the entrance door’s cannon balls and drums, and the cast iron rifle stair balusters–were added.  WPA artist Allen Saalburg replaced Jacob Wrey Mould's interior ornamentation with with historically-themed murals.

The often-maligned Armory was declared a New York City Landmark in 1967.  In 2008 the department completed a $5 million structural restoration focused, mainly, on water leaks.

Since the early 1980s, much of the interior of the Arsenal has been devoted to gallery and space for public forums.  Fine art and photography shows are exhibited here throughout the year with preference going to those highlighting the environment, urban issues and parks history.

photo via New York Parks Department