14 Wall Street - History

History

St Mark's Campanile

The concept behind the building's design was to place the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus on top of St Mark's Campanile in Venice. Many early skyscrapers took the Venetian bell-tower as a logical model for a modern office tower, but 14 Wall Street was the first to top it off with a temple in the sky, a seven-story stepped pyramid modeled on one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Bankers Trust, for whom the building was constructed, then adopted the pyramid as its trademark, and took as its slogan "A Tower of Strength".

The first stage of construction, 1910–1912, was marked by the demolition of a 20-story Gillender Building, claimed to be the first skyscraper demolished to make way for a taller skyscraper. It was completed in 1912 and is 539 feet (164 m) tall with 37 floors. In its day the world's tallest bank building, the skyscraper originally housed the headquarters of Bankers Trust, which was founded in 1903 when a number of commercial banks needed a vehicle to enter the trusts and estates market; fourteen years later it became a full-service bank, and one of the country's wealthiest financial institutions. The bank occupied only the three lower floors; its main operations were housed elsewhere in less expensive offices. Most of the remainder of the building was rental property.

The 31st floor was once an apartment belonging to J. P. Morgan. The space was converted into an upscale French restaurant called "The 14 Wall Street." However, the restaurant closed in April 2006, following plans in 2004 to convert the entire building from offices into luxury condos. On January 21, 2007, the building's owners, having stalled in their residential conversion plan, agreed to sell the property to Cushman & Wakefield. The Morgan apartment is now used by the international IT services provider, FDM Group, which kept many of the original features, including the bar, fireplace and wooden flooring.

In April 2012, majority control of the building was sold for $303 million in cash to Alexander Rovt, a fertilizer tycoon from the Ukraine, who paid off the building's outstanding debt as part of the deal. Rovt, who is listed as #372 on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, paid less then the $325 million building had sold for in 2007, at the peak of the real estate boom. At the time of the purchase, it had 300,000 square feet of vacant space, and three potential tenants were in discussion to lease about two-thirds of that amount.

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