City Bank-Farmers Trust Company Building

History and architecture

One of the most prominent features of the Lower Manhattan skyline, the fifty-nine-story City Bank-Farmers Trust tower is among New York City's tallest skyscrapers. Designed by the architectural firm of Cross & Cross in the restrained modern style once known as "Modern Classic," it was built in 1930-31 to be the Wall Street headquarters of one of the country's largest financial institutions, which survives today as Citibank. The steel-framed tower is sheathed in granite and limestone, making it, on completion, the world's tallest stone-faced building.

Its lower portion is both massive, especially in contrast to the narrow streets, and dramatically vertical, organized around widely spaced giant piers which rise to freestanding stylized heroic figures said to represent "giants of finance." The main entrance, located on Exchange Place, is distinguished by its round arch surrounded by eleven coins of carved granite representing the various countries in which National City Bank had offices.

Decorative doors of nickel silver with bronze trim and a variety of carved forms, many designed by British sculptor David Evans, adorn the lower floors. The slender, square tower with chamfered corners, rising slightly askew to the irregularly shaped base, today remains a commanding presence in the skyline of lower Manhattan, and one of the most noteworthy of the era's skyscrapers.

No. 20 Exchange Place was built to house the head offices of one of Wall Street's new banking conglomerates, the City Bank-Farmers Trust Co., along with a branch of the National City Bank of New York and a branch of the Canadian Bank of Commerce.1 The City Bank-Farmers Trust Company was the product of a merger of two long-established banking firms: the National City Bank of New York and the Farmers Loan and Trust Company. The Canadian Bank of Commerce was a tenant in a building demolished to make way for the new tower and had been located on the site since as early as 1872.

The National City Bank of New York, which survives today as Citibank, is among the country's largest and oldest banks, tracing its origins to the First Bank of the United States, founded in 1791, of which it was the New York branch.