American Stock Exchange Building

American Stock Exchage Building
  1. About the American Stock Exchange Building in New York
    1. Building Catalogations
  2. Architect and team
  3. Architectureal style
  4. Spaces and uses
  5. Structure and materials

The American Stock Exchange Building is an Art-deco skyscraper designed in 1920 by Starrett & van Vleck and built between 1920 and 1921 in New York, NY.

American Stock Exchange 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 American Stock Exchange Building is also known, or has been known as, New York Curb Exchange Building, 86 Trinity Place, or 123 Greenwich Street.

Its precise street address is 86 Trinity Place, New York, NY. You can also find it on the map here.

The American Stock Exchange 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 American Stock Exchange Building was officially declared as a national landmark on June 26th 2012, and was included in the National Register of Historic Places on June 2nd 1978, as well as in the New York Register of Historic Places on June 23rd 1980.

The building underwent a major restoration between 1929 and 1931. The architect commissioned to undertake this restoration was Starrett & van Vleck.

Building's timeline

Construction begins
1920
104
Construction completed
1921
103
a
Restoration
1931
93
Added to the NRHP
1978
46
Added to the New York RHP
1980
44
Declared NL
2012
12
years ago
2024
  1. 1929 to 1931 - The buiding area was enlarged. The architect in charge was Starrett & van Vleck.

Architect and team

Starrett & van Vleck was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

The firm was established in New York City in 1908.

Before moving to New York and partnering with van Vleck, Goldwin Starrett had worked at D. H. Burnham & Company in Chicago. Later he moved to New York and joined Thompson–Starrett, where he met Earnest Alan van Vleck, who was also working there.

They are known for their significant contributions to the architectural landscape and retail architecture of early 20th-century New York.

Over the years the firms brought in new partners, including Ernest Brooks, Frank Gaertner, Herbert M. Hathaway, Otto A. Johnson, Frank L. Kirby and Reginald E. Marsh. Regardless of these auditions, the firm didn’t change its name.

Van Vleck died in 1956, and although the firm remained active it dissolved shortly thereafter.

Starrett & van Vleck was in charge of the architectural design, however, architecture is a complex discipline, which usually involves 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 at the very least we know that there was one other part involved, that was Thompson-Starrett Co as the Main Contractor.

Architectural Style

The American Stock Exchange 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 American Stock Exchange Building was completed in 1921. These were the early days of the Art Deco movement, when the style hadn't yet reached its maturity, and there fore it is more likely to to still have traces of the Classical or Gothic Revival periods which preceded Art-Deco.

Starrett & van Vleck took a risk by designing a building that was ahead of its time, and which other architects sure took inspiration from as the Art Deco movement evolved.

Spaces & Uses

The American Stock Exchange Building reaches an architectural height of 210ft (64m). It has a total of 15 floors, 14 above ground and 1 basements.

Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1921, the American Stock Exchange Building has mainly been used as Commercial space.

210ft (64m)
1 basements

Materials & Structure

The American Stock Exchange 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 non-load bearing either, as it is common in frame structure type buildings.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features gray bricks on the Greenwich St facade, while limestone with a granite base was used for the Trinity Place facade. The facade decorations are made of terracotta.

Other materials found at the American Stock Exchange Building include, glass, used in the entrance doors panels, metal , found in de decorative windows grilles and doors frames, and marble , marble plates is seen on the walls baseboards.

Sources

  • s-media.nyc.gov