70 Pine Street Building

70 Pine Street Building
  1. About the 70 Pine Street Building in New York
    1. Building Catalogations
  2. Architect and team
  3. Architectural style
  4. Spaces and uses
  5. Structure and materials

The 70 Pine Street Building is an Art-deco skyscraper designed by Clinton & Russell, Holton & George, and built between 1930 and 1932, for a reported $7.00 million dollars, in New York, NY.

70 Pine Street Building 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:

  • 60 Wall Tower.
  • Cities Service Building until 1965.
  • American International Building from 1976 until this day.

Its precise street address is 70 Pine Street, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

The 70 Pine Street Building 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 Art Deco style. Because of that, the 70 Pine Street Building was officially included in the New York Register of Historic Places on June 21st 2011.

At the time of its completion in 1932 the 70 Pine Street Building incorporated solutions that were quite advanced at the time, these included the use of escalators, which were rare in large office buildings back then. The building also included a ventilation system which was incorporated inside the walls and over the radiators.

Building's timeline

Construction begins
1930
94
Construction completed
1932
92
American International Building
1976
48
Added to the New York RHP
2011
13
years ago
2024

Architect and team

Clinton & Russell, Holton & George 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 70 Pine Street Building a reality:

  • Taylor Fichter Steel Construction in charge of Structural Engineering
  • James Stewart & Co. Builders as the Main Contractor
  • Otis as the company in charge of the elevators system
  • Rose Associates as the Main Developer
  • Rene Paul Chambellan as the collaborating Artist

Architectural Style

The 70 Pine Street Building can be categorized as an Art-deco building.

The Art Deco movement flourished during the 1920s and 1930s, with many historians marking the outbreak of World War II as its final decline. Even though a couple of decades might not seem as much, the Art Deco movement had a great impact on architecture, and it's widely represented in many American cities due to the development boom that happened during that time.

Art Deco marked the abandonment of traditional historicism and the embracement of modern living and the age of the machine. In architecture, that meant leaving behind the ornaments of Beux-Arts and Neo-Gothic buildings and instead favoring simplicity and visual impact through geometric shapes, clean lines, and symmetrical designs. Ornaments were still an important part of the design, but they became bold and lavish, and were often inspired by ancient cultures or industrial imagery, instead of nature.

The 70 Pine Street Building was completed in 1932, right when the Art Deco movement was at its peak, so it kind of went with the trend at that time.

Spaces & Uses

The 70 Pine Street Building reaches an architectural height of 787ft (240m), 951ft (290m) if you count the antenna. It has a total of 68 floors, 67 above ground and 1 basements, served by 24 elevators.

When it opened its doors to the public in 1932, the 70 Pine Street Building was primarily used as Commercial space. That however, is no longer the case, and today it mainly provides Residential space. If you are interested in learning more about the residences and their availability, you can check the 70 Pine Street Building's website.

About the residences

The 70 Pine Street Building has a total of 612 residential units throughout its 67 floors. If you are interested in learning more about the residences and their availability, you can check the 70 Pine Street Building's website.

951ft (290m)
787ft (240m)
1 basements

Materials & Structure

The 70 Pine Street Building 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 is a non-load bearing masonry facade. This type of facade became common during the period when buildings, especially taller ones, transitioned from load-bearing wall systems to frame structures.

Frame structures allowed facades to be independent from the building's frame, enabling the use of lighter materials and larger openings. However, it took some time for architects to incorporate these new posibilities into their designs, and so for a while they simply replicated the look and feel fo buildings people where used to seeing.

Non-structural Masonry Facade
Non-structural Masonry Facade

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a Minnesota granite and red and black Morton gneiss cladding. The lower facade floors are clad in light Indiana limestone, with bricks in four shades of beige continuing up to the top. Aluminum is used for the facade ornamentation.

Other materials found at the 70 Pine Street Building include, glass , used for the 8m lantern, stainless steel, found at the pinnacle that serves as the base of the building's spire, marble, different colors of European marbles are used in the lobby walls. White and pink marble panels arranged in a checkerboard pattern were used on the floors , and plaster, used in the ceilings.

Sources

  • s-media.nyc.gov