140 Broadway

The 140 Broadway is an International Style skyscraper designed between 1960 and 1962 by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with Gordon Bunshaft as lead architect, and built between 1964 and 1967 in New York, NY.

140 Broadway is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The building has changed names several times over the years, and is also known as:

• Marine Midland Building between 1967 and 1980.
• HSBC Bank Building between 1980 and 2002.
• 140 Broadway from 2002 until this day.

Its precise street address is 140 Broadway, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

The 140 Broadway is a structure of significant importance both for the city of New York and the United States as a nation. The building embodies the distinctive characteristic features of the time in which it was built and the International Style style. Because of that, the 140 Broadway was officially included in the New York Register of Historic Places on June 25^th 2013.

The Marine Midland Building was one of the first developments to comply with the 1961 Zoning Resolution, which encouraged the inclusion of public plazas in office building projects, this tower features a trapezoidal footprint that occupies approximately 40% of the site. The remaining area is designated as a privately owned public space (POPS).

The plaza's design is a simple layout composed of travertine pavers that extend to the sidewalk, with minimal additions and no trees. The only significant interruption in the plaza is the Red Cube, a vermilion-painted steel and aluminum cube created by Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi and installed in 1968.

The building has been restored 2 times over the years to ensure its conservation and adaptation to the pass of time. The main restoration works happened in 2000 and 2013.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with Gordon Bunshaft as the lead architect, was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the 140 Broadway a reality:

• James Ruderman in charge of Structural Engineering
• Diesel Construction Company as the Main Contractor
• Erwin S. Wolfson as the Main Developer
• Jaros, Baum & Bolles in charge of MEP Engineering
• Isamu Noguchi as the collaborating Artist

The 140 Broadway can be categorized as an International Style building.

The 140 Broadway was designed in 1960. By 1960 the International Style movement had already left its early days behind and could be considered a mature movement, which does not mean it was loved and accepted by everyone, on the contrary. The International Style was accepted by the architecture community way before it was by the general public, and it is therefore likely that the 140 Broadway was not well received by everyone at the time.

The 140 Broadway uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade uses a non-load bearing curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame, typically by being attached to the edge of the floor slabs. The curtain wall system connects to the slabs using brackets, anchors, and mullions, which transfer the loads imposed by wind and temperature changes, to the building's primary structural elements.

This setup allows the curtain wall to accommodate differential movement between the facade and the structural frame, such as thermal expansion, floor deflection, or sway from wind forces. This system's integration with the slab edges also allows for continuous insulation and weatherproofing layers.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features black anodized aluminum spandrels and bronze-tinted glass. The design features smooth, uninterrupted glass panels without visible mullions or joints. The only interruptions to the otherwise smooth surface are the window frames and the tracks for the window-washing system.