The 1921 Bankers Trust Co. Building - 598 Madison Avenue

 

photo by Tdorante10

Founded in 1917 with just 12 employees, Bankers' Trust Company approved loans of nearly half a million dollars on its first day of business and received deposits of $485,000.  In 1918, the firm acquired the four converted dwellings on the northwest corner of Madison Avenue and 57th Street and hired architect Charles I. Birge to design a bank and office building on the site.

It was possibly the depleted workforce caused by the world war that slowed construction, which was not completed until 1921.  Birge's 15-story structure towered above the former mansions it surrounded.  His tripartite, Renaissance Revival design sat upon a three-story stone base.  The double-height banking room was entered on West 57th Street Street, while the lobby to the upper floors was accessed at 598 Madison Avenue.  The relatively unadorned ten-story midsection was faced in red brick.  Birge reintroduced limestone at the two-story top section, where double-height pilasters separated each bay.

Former mansions, now converted for business, surround the newly completed structure.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Among the building's initial tenants were the Life Publishing Company, and the New York headquarters of the Red Cross.

The October 20, 1921 issue of Life magazine was one of the first issued from 598 Madison Avenue

The Red Cross struggled with Americans' growing indifference to the organization following the end of World War I.  It repeatedly urged, "The war may be over, but the work is not."  A massive fund raising effort was launched on November 12, 1921.  The New-York Tribune wrote:

America's living soldier, not unknown, but almost unnoticed after three years of peace, leading his shadowy existence in the great national hospitals came back to the public mind and heart yesterday with the opening of the Red Cross Roll Call.  There is nothing to be done for the Unknown Soldier, but for his still disabled and suffering comrades and their families there is opportunity for service through the payment of $1 to the Red Cross.

As part of the ceremony, two dozen "gold star" pigeons were released from the roof of 598 Madison Avenue.  The female birds had (supposedly) laid the eggs of war pigeons that had been killed in service in France.  They carried "best wishes for the success of the drive" to the Red Cross chapter in Brooklyn where they arrived ten minutes later.

The post-war work of the Red Cross was far-reaching.  On October 16, 1921, for instance, the New York Herald reported on the organization's work to find lost families in Europe.  The previous day, nine replies had been received from Moscow that reconnected New York families with loved ones in Russia.

Another early tenant was Dover Farms Industries, Inc. which was founded in 1919 to aid disabled soldiers.  On November 27, 1921, the New York Herald reported, "In a big loft lighted by many windows of a handsome new building on Madison avenue, No. 598 to be exact, there is now being displayed sets of toys that are interesting in themselves, but doubly so as we approach the holiday season because of the appeal they make to the children."  The dollhouses, trucks and other playthings were all crafted by former servicemen.  The article mentioned, "The toys...are only a fraction of the work in this direction and...[the] association means to extend until a staggering number of men 'put out of business' by the effects of the war are earning their own living." 

A soldier-made wooden warehouse with barrels, crates and trucks could be disassembled and put back together.  The New York Herald, November 17, 1921 (copyright expired)

Other offices were leased to the American Association of Bankers, architect J. E. R. Carpenter, and the Vassar Salary Endowment Fund.  On September 17, 1922, the New York Herald used the American Association of Bankers as an example of the strides women had made since the war.  Saying that during the 1904 convention the only mention of women was that wives of the delegates "were entertained last night at Coney Island," the article told of "little yellow stickups" in the headquarters here that "mark the women bank executives who have written to say they are coming."

Edward Bok opened the offices of the American Peace Award here in 1923.  With the horrors of world war fresh in his mind, he had created the award that year, believing that the Government was not proactively promoting world peace.  A $1,000 prize (about 17 times that much in 2024 dollars) would go to the person who submitted "the best practicable plan by which the United States may co-operate with other nations for the achievement and preservation of world peace."  A jury presented the winner the first half of the prize, the second coming with acceptance by the U.S. Senate or "sufficient popular support."  Among the jury members was Eleanor Roosevelt.

In 1928, the West Indies was devastated by a massive hurricane.  A wave of "America first" letters arrived at 598 Madison Avenue complaining that Red Cross funds were being used for the far away victims.  Mortimer N. Buckner, chairman of the county chapter, told a reporter from The New York Age in October, "there seemed to be confusion in the minds of many people in New York city as to the duties of the American Red Cross."  He rather sternly reminded readers that the organization must "continue and carry on a system of national and international relief in time of peace and to apply the same in mitigating the suffering caused by pestilence, famine, fire, flood and other great national calamities."

At the time the Edwin Gould Foundation for Children occupied an office in the building.  It would remain at least through 1935.

Around 1935, the Garden Club of America moved in, publishing pamphlets like Outdoor Good Manners and Conservation Guide.  The club, which would remain for decades, was joined by the headquarters of the Horticultural Society.  The Society held its annual narcissus show on the premises.  On April 25, 1946, The New York Times remarked, "Thousands of narcissuses and daffodils, now at the peak of their flowering season, will be displayed."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

The early 1960s saw the law offices of Saxe, Bacon and O'Shea at 598 Madison Avenue.  Among the firm's most visible attorneys was Roy M. Cohn.  In 1954 he had been chief counsel to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's Senate committee investigating suspected communists.  He was on trial in February 1964, charged with "lying before a grand jury investigating the United Dye and Chemical Corporation stock swindle," according to The New York Times.  

On February 27, 1964, the newspaper began an article saying, "Roy M. Cohn has asked for dismissal of a perjury indictment against him on the ground that the Government has been intercepting his mail and that of his lawyer for almost a year."  In fact, the Internal Revenue Service, which had been quietly investigating Cohn for a year, had requested the postal inspector to do a month-long "mail cover."  By that process, the mail was not delayed or read, but "the addresses and post office marks of letters sent to Mr. Cohn" were recorded, according to post office inspector Robert J. Hickey.

Cohn would later represent high-powered clients like Donald Trump.  He was disbarred in 1986 for unethical conduct.

In 1964, the Music Corporation of America occupied seven floors in the building, earning it the unofficial nickname the MCA Building.  That year on March 24, The New York Times reported, "Rogers & Hammerstein, the musical comedy writing team, has leased space in the building of the Music Corporation of America at 598 Madison Avenue."

Composer Richard Rodgers meets with Borough President Constance Baker Motley in his office here.  N. Y. Amsterdam News, September 4, 1965  

Rodgers & Hammerstein remained at 598 Madison Avenue until January 1990.  Among its neighbors in the building  in the 1970s and '80s was the New York Jets Football, Inc. organization.  

By then Chase Manhattan Bank occupied the former Bankers Trust space on the ground floor.  On March 7, The New York Times reported that Louis Vuitton had leased the property, saying, "The lease, under which Louis Vuitton would essentially operate the building as its own, is said to be worth $4 million a year."  Chase Manhattan Bank, however, reported it "intended to remain in the branch for the balance of its lease, which runs for nine more years."

photo by Tdorante10

In 2003, Louis Vuitton expanded further.  On February 19, The New York Times reported that in addition to its 24-story flagship building at 19 East 57th Street and the abutting 598 Madison Avenue, it had purchased the building across the avenue on the northeast corner of Madison Avenue and 57th Street.  With the bank now gone, the limestone base of 598 Madison Avenue was remodeled, erasing any confusion that this was still a bank.  The  renovations made no attempt to compliment Charles I. Birge's 1921 design.  The retail space is home to a Dior boutique today.

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