23 Wall Street (also known as the J.P. Morgan Building) is a four-story office building in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, United States. Located at the southeast corner of Wall Street and Broad Street, it was designed by Trowbridge & Livingston in the neoclassical style and constructed from 1913 to 1914. It was originally the headquarters of J.P. Morgan & Co. Since the late 2000s, the building has remained unoccupied for long periods, although it has occasionally been used for events.
The building has a facade of ashlar masonry and pink Tennessee marble. The first floor consists of a piano nobile over a low basement; above are the second story, the main cornice, and two more stories. After its completion, the building became known as the headquarters of J.P. Morgan & Co.—the "House of Morgan"—although its exterior was never signed with the Morgan name. The banking room, which took up nearly the entire ground floor, included offices and was used for banking transactions. This space was designed with a domed, coffered ceiling and, later, a large crystal chandelier. Mechanical systems and vaults were in the basement, and executive offices were placed on the upper floors.
23 Wall Street replaced the Drexel Building, which was the banking headquarters for J.P. Morgan & Co.'s predecessor Drexel, Morgan & Co. When the building was damaged during the Wall Street bombing in 1920, J.P. Morgan & Co. refused to make repairs, in defiance of the bombing's perpetrators. The building was linked to neighboring 15 Broad Street in 1957, and the two buildings served as the J.P. Morgan & Co. headquarters until 1988, when the firm moved to 60 Wall Street. During the 2000s, there were plans to convert both 23 Wall Street and 15 Broad Street into a condominium complex. In 2008, 23 Wall Street was sold to interests associated with the billionaire industrialist Sam Pa but mostly remained empty afterward.
Depicted in several media works, 23 Wall Street's simple design was generally praised upon its completion. The building is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP); it is also a contributing property to the NRHP-listed Wall Street Historic District.
Site 23 Wall Street is in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, at the southeast corner of Broad Street to the west and Wall Street to the north. The building's land lot has a frontage of about along Broad Street and along Wall Street. It borders 15 Broad Street to the south and west. Other nearby buildings include the New York Stock Exchange Building to the west; 14 Wall Street to the northwest; Federal Hall National Memorial (formerly the sub-Treasury building) at 26 Wall Street to the north; and 40 Wall Street to the northeast. The Broad Street station of the New York City Subway, serving the , contains entrances directly outside 23 Wall Street.
The Second Empire style Drexel Building—the banking headquarters for Drexel, Morgan & Co., predecessor of J.P. Morgan & Co.—previously occupied 23 Wall Street's site. Anthony Drexel had bought the site in 1872 for , making it the city's most expensive plot of land at the time. The Drexel Building, completed in 1873, was designed with a mansard roof and marble walls. Its seven stories had been connected by a steam elevator, one of the city's earliest such installations. The Real Estate Record and Guide characterized the Drexel Building as "the second fireproof building of importance" to be built in New York City, after the Equitable Life Building.
Architecture Trowbridge & Livingston designed 23 Wall Street in the neoclassical style. Marc Eidlitz was the building's main construction contractor. Many other engineers and contractors were involved in the building's construction, including elevator supplier A. B. See, vault contractor Carnegie Steel Company, and vault engineer Frederick S. Holmes. 23 Wall Street was the headquarters of J.P. Morgan & Co., the "House of Morgan", and was nicknamed "The Corner". J. P. Morgan Jr., the head of the bank when the building was being planned, dictated many aspects of its design. Unlike skyscrapers in the surrounding area, 23 Wall Street was built with only four above-ground stories. The building originally contained up to five mezzanine levels, leading Architecture and Building magazine to characterize it as a nine-story building.
The building is shaped like an irregular heptagon, with a chamfered corner at its main entrance at Wall and Broad Streets, as well as a "light court" on the building's eastern side at the third and fourth stories.; The southeast corner contains an extension that protrudes slightly from the southern lot line. The main entrance corner, facing the intersection of Wall, Broad, and Nassau Streets, was intended to make the intersection appear like a public square outside Federal Hall. When the building was being designed, Morgan had stipulated the architects include an entrance at that corner. The acute angle of the intersection led Trowbridge & Livingston to design that entrance as a chamfer, which was more architecturally appealing.; The facade rises about above street level. Because of the irregular shape, the building only takes up on Broad Street and on Wall Street, or about less than the lot frontage on either side.
Facade
The facade is made of ashlar masonry and pink Tennessee marble,; ; in accordance with J. P. Morgan Sr.'s request that the marble be identical to that used in his 36th Street residence's library. Each of the marble blocks was laid horizontally, with a cross section of and a length of . To furnish the marble for the project, the Morgans used their own quarry in Knoxville, Tennessee. The walls are astylar in design, with unadorned windows in deep reveals. The facade contains several divots caused by flying shrapnel from the Wall Street bombing, which occurred outside the building in 1920.
The first floor consists of a high piano nobile over a low basement. Above that are a shorter second story and the windowless third story; the fourth story is set back and not visible from street level. The main cornice, between the second and third stories, is inspired by Italian Renaissance architecture and wraps around the north, northwest, and west sides. A mechanical penthouse containing air-conditioning machinery is atop the original roof.
The main entrance is through the chamfered corner at Wall and Broad Streets; the building's corner measures wide. A short flight of five steps leads from the sidewalk to the large rectangular entrance opening, which is slightly recessed from the facade. The entrance opening contains a bronze-and-glass set of doors underneath a transom window made of bronze and glass. On either side of the entrance opening, the chamfered corner's walls are designed to resemble pilasters. The senior Morgan had stipulated that no company name signs would be on either of the pilasters, as he planned to add decorative elements, but he died before the plans were finalized. Ultimately, no name plaque was ever placed atop the main entrance, as the building became well known worldwide. The lintel above the doorway is a single continuous stone measuring and was, at the time of the building's construction, one of the largest stones ever brought to New York City. Above the main entrance, at the second story, there is a single set of three windows. According to The New York Times, the main entrance was sometimes also known by the building's nickname, "The Corner".
The remainders of the Wall and Broad Street facades are similar, except that the Broad Street facade has four vertical bays, and the Wall Street facade has five. In each bay, there is a tall rectangular window opening at ground level, as well as a pair of smaller openings at the mezzanine. Each of the ground-story windows measures tall and wide. There were also window openings at the basement level, subsequently infilled with marble. Another entrance on Broad Street led to the wire transfer department in the building's basement.;
Features Substructure and basement The foundations of the outer walls were made of cofferdams that extended into the underlying bedrock.; The concrete used in the cofferdams was laid thick. The perimeter of the site was excavated with pneumatic caissons averaging about , after which the center of the lot was excavated to a depth of . The foundations were built to be strong enough to support a tower of at least 30 stories.
The basement was accessed through an elevator and stairs in the rear of the ground story, as well as through the secondary entrance on Broad Street. It contained a three-story vault that, at the time of the building's completion, Architecture magazine described as "one of the largest in existence". The interior of the vault was cited as measuring with exterior dimensions of . A stair and elevator connected the three levels in the vault; the elevator was nicknamed the money room. The vault walls were thick and were made of steel layers reinforced with concrete. The circular vault door, made of a steel composite, could be swung open with one hand. There was also a private shooting range for J.P. Morgan & Co. in the basement. The remaining space in the basement was used to house the building's mechanical systems, such as heating and ventilating systems, as well as vaults and storerooms.
Ground story
The entire ground story was designed as a symmetrical double-height space with single-height partitions. The small, irregular lot size meant that the design could not waste any space. Just inside the main entrance was an anteroom with a staircase on the left and an elevator on the right, which led to the upper-story executive offices. The main ground-story space covered .; This space had no interior columns and was topped by a coffered ceiling with a pattern of gilded hexagons and circles.; ; At the center of the room was a shallow domed skylight,; ; ; measuring in diameter. During a renovation in the early 1960s, plaster replaced the glass dome, and a massive crystal chandelier was installed at the center. The 1,900-piece Louis Quinze chandelier was removed and placed in 15 Broad Street during a 2000s renovation of that building.
At the center of the room was a main lobby shaped like an irregular hexagon, which, according to author Ron Chernow, was intended to resemble the layout of a "London merchant bank". It contained bank officers' enclosures and a public hall. It had a mosaic floor tile and was surrounded by a screen of pink Tennessee marble, with bronze-and-glass grilles, as well as columns of Skyros marble. There were Italian Renaissance-style carvings sculpted by Charles Keck on the screen.; ; On one side of the screen were depictions of the sea, the earth, and the air, inspired by Greek mythology. A depiction of Hiawatha, on the opposite side of the screen, was meant to represent agriculture and arts. Zodiac symbols were placed at the center of the floor; these symbols were emblems of a private club composed of J. P. Morgan Sr.'s friends. Shorter marble railings replaced the screen in the early 1960s renovation.