Fellheimer & Wagner's Corn Exchange Bank - 267 Broadway

 

The expansive Wallach Brothers clothing store occupied 265-267 Broadway in the post-World War I years.  The building was owned by the Orphan Asylum Society of the City of New York.  On September 20, 1937, Wallach's moved into the Paragon Building at Broadway and Murray Street.  The move was necessary because the Corn Exchange Bank had taken over the lease for 265-267 Broadway as a branch office and was remodeling it.  Founded in 1853, The Corn Exchange Bank now had multiple branches throughout the city.  

The architectural firm of Fellheimer & Wagner was commissioned to remodel the architecturally outdated structure.  The architects' streamlined Art Moderne design included glass blocks over the entrances and in the vast second floor openings.  They were flanked by deep-set piercings, stacked in a diamond pattern.  Stylized Chicago-style windows gave interest to the upper three floors.  A striking Art Moderne-style flagpole base drew the eye upward and balanced what would otherwise have been a bottom-heavy design.

This photograph was taken by Wurts Bros. in 1937, shortly after the bank opened here.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

On October 24, 1937, The New York Times tepidly remarked on the renovations, saying only that "a glass front on the five-story building housing the Corn Exchange Bank at 265 Broadway" had been installed.

In 1954 the bank merged with Chemical Bank, becoming the Chemical Corn Bank.  Interior renovations were done in 1957.  The bank was renamed again in 1959, now the Chemical Bank Trust Company.

That year the TelePrompTer Corporation opened an account.  The firm was responsible for broadcasting the Ingemar Johansson-Floyd Patterson heavyweight title prize fight in June.  Two months later, Johansson's promoter, Bill Rosensohn, questioned the firm's accounting.  On August 8, 1959, attorney Edwin Schweig announced, "all the accounting records were in order, and that there was about $460,000 now in an account at the Chemical Corn Exchange Bank at 265 Broadway--money from the sale of radio, motion picture and theatre-TV rights to the June fight."  The balance would translate to about $5 million in 2026.

The Orphan Asylum Society of the City of New York finally sold the property to Chemical Bank in 1976.

A rash of bank robberies ushered in the new year of 1980.  There were 17 robberies the first week, including four on January 7.  The following day Newsday said, "Three banks in Manhattan were robbed of several thousand dollars within 34 minutes yesterday morning, and a pair of armed robbers held up a fourth bank in the Bronx, police said."  Among them was the Chemical Bank at 267 Broadway.  Newsday reported that it "was held up at 11:02 AM by an armed man who got 'a few thousand dollars,' police said."

image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Two years later, on February 7, 1982, The New York Times began an article saying, "To the New York City detectives who concentrate on trying to catch bank robbers, they have become known simply as 'the Women.'"  Since December 28, a three-member female gang had knocked off 11 banks in Manhattan and Brooklyn.  The article said, "In their most recent robbery, last Thursday, two of the women held up a Chemical Bank branch at 265 Broadway, near Chambers Street, and got away with $1,500."  

At the time, bank tellers interacted with their depositors face-to-face.  NYPD Lieutenant Joseph R. Nekola urged banks to install "bandit barriers"--shields of bulletproof Plexiglas.  The shields became more and more familiar to the banking public until becoming ubiquitous.

At the turn of the century, an HSBC Bank occupied the building.  Despite updated precautions, the branch was targeted by an unarmed robber on April 22, 2003, who made away with $41,000 in cash.  It was one of 170 bank robberies that year so far.  The following day, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg "harshly criticized some banks for failing to provide better security," reported The New York Times.  He told reporters that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly "is meeting with them today to read the riot act.  It's unconscionable what's going on."  He added, "Word is also out that some banks don't care, that you pass a note to get the money and you can get away with it."

The suspect in the HSBC Bank robbery, 37-year-old Bryant Brown, was arrested.  He was suspected in "a series of bank robberies scattered across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx," reported The Times.  Police said, "his method was to pass a note to a teller in each of the banks demanding money."

In 2011, HSBC Bank announced it would sell 195 branches.  Among those was 265 Broadway.  In 2017 real estate developer Roe Corporation announced a 45-story, mixed-use structure on the site.  The project did not move forward and in the spring of 2026, The Rabsky Group purchased the building for $30 million.  On May 18, 2026, Tribeca Citizen reported that a "mixed-use condo using 51,730 square feet of zoning floor area," would replace the bank building.

With no protection from the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the fate of one of downtown Manhattan's most eye-catching Art Moderne structures seems sealed.

photographs by the author

The 1930 Corn Exchange Bank Building - 57-59 West 86th Street

 

In 1928 Earl Winfield Spencer and his wife, the former Agnes Lucy Hughes, lived in the large, Queen Anne style house at 59 West 86th Street.  It had been designed by John G. Prague in 1888.  The Spencers' names were in the news nation-wide that year concerning whom the Waterbury Evening Democrat called the "most talked of woman in the world."

Their son, a founder of the shipbroking firm of Simpson, Spence & Young, had just married the recently divorced Wallis Warfield Spencer in London.  His bride was well known for her fashion and entertaining.  Syndicated journalist Laura Lou Brookman noted that Wallis Simpson was, as well, a "confidante" of Edward, the Prince of Wales.  (The Simpsons' marriage would last until 1937, and Wallis's open affair with King Edward VIII would lead to his abdication.)

At the time of their son's marriage, Earl and Agnes Spencer's home was threatened.  The Corn Exchange Bank & Trust Co. eyed it and the house next door at 57 West 86th Street as the site of a branch building.  The properties were acquired and the architectural firm of Fellheimer & Wagner was commissioned to design a dual-purpose structure--one that would house both the bank branch and income-producing apartments.

On April 8, 1929 the New York Evening Post reported that the Corn Exchange Bank had purchased the two houses "as a site for another upper West Side branch."  Construction was completed within eight months.  On December 10 the New York Evening Post reported that the branch had opened.  "The branch is fully equipped to do a full banking business," said the article.  The Standard Union added, "this new branch on Eighty-sixth street afford even greater convenience for those who live and work in that part of the city."  

The Art Deco style Corn Exchange Bank & Trust Co. building was rather spartan.  The double-height first floor (with mezzanine inside) featured vast windows fronting the banking room, a cloth-canopied entrance to the bank at the west, and an understated residential entrance on the other side.  

A hint of the appearance of the Simpson house can be seen at right.  image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.

Fellheimer & Wagner upset the otherwise rigidly symmetric design by placing a carved panel of a wheat sheaf (a symbol of abundance) above the bank entrance, and an inset metal grill over the residential doorway.

Three centered, fluted piers that rose from the second floor disappeared into the air above the roofline, with no capitals nor other architectural elements to cap them.  They interrupted the zig-zag Art Deco parapet that took the place of a cornice.

There were four apartments per floor in the building.  The tenants came and went quietly over the succeeding decades, drawing no undue attention to the address.

The Corn Exchange Bank was founded in 1853 in New York State.  By now it had multiple branches throughout the city, including one nearby at Broadway and 81st Street.  In 1954 the bank merged with Chemical Bank, becoming the Chemical Corn Bank.  It was renamed again in 1959, now the Chemical Bank Trust Company.

By the first years of the 21st century, the ground floor had become home to a J. P. Morgan Chase branch.  Among its employees in 2011 was personal banker Fordin Francois, who conceived of a scheme to augment his income.  He would share his clients' personal identification information with cohorts, who would then either withdraw money directly from the accounts, or transfer clients' money into their own accounts.  Between January and June 2012, Francois stole more than $700,000 from multiple account holders. 

When he was arrested on June 27, 2012 he had a briefcase containing the personal identification information of numerous Chase customers.  The 26-year-old was charged with "Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, Identity Theft in the First Degree, Computer Trespass, and Unlawful Possession of Personal Identification Information in the Third Degree," according to District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr.

When onslaught of coronavirus hit J. P. Morgan Chase hard.  On March 18, 2020 Reuters reported that the bank would permanently or temporarily close "about 1,000 branches."  Included was 57-59 West 86th Street.  The space is still vacant in 2023.

There are still 12 apartments in the upper floors.  And Fellheimer & Wagner's handsome if somewhat stoic Art Deco building survives almost totally intact.

photograph by the author

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