The American Surety Building (also known as the Bank of Tokyo Building or 100 Broadway) is an office building and early skyscraper at Pine Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, across from Trinity Church. The building, designed in a Neo-Renaissance style by Bruce Price with a later expansion by Herman Lee Meader, is tall, with either 23 or 26 stories. It was one of Manhattan's first buildings with steel framing and curtain wall construction.
The American Surety Building contains a facade of Maine granite. Its articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital, making the American Surety Building one of the earliest New York City skyscrapers to feature such a layout. The facade contains several ornamental features, including sculptural elements designed by J. Massey Rhind. In addition, the American Surety Building uses an interior skeleton of structural steel, as well as a cantilevered steel structure for its foundations.
The building was erected between 1894 and 1896 as a 21-story structure, which was the second tallest building in New York City when completed. Between 1920 and 1922, an annex was built to designs by Meader, increasing the floor area and adding two stories to the building. A later tenant, the Bank of Tokyo, hired Kajima International to restore the lower 13 stories between 1973 and 1975. The American Surety Building was made a New York City designated landmark in 1995.
Site
The American Surety Building is located in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, adjacent to Broadway to the west and Pine Street to the north, with Wall Street less than a block to the south. The building is adjacent to Trinity Church, Trinity's churchyard, and the Trinity and United States Realty Buildings to the west; the Equitable Building to the north; 14 Wall Street to the east; and 1 Wall Street to the south. Entrances to the New York City Subway's Wall Street station, served by the , are adjacent to the building.
The lot covers about , and measures on Pine Street and on Broadway. None of the sides are parallel. The original lot, prior to the building's 1920–1922 expansion, measured .
Architecture
The American Surety Building is either 23 or 26 stories tall, with a height of . and was designed by Bruce Price in the Neo-Renaissance style. Upon completion, the American Surety Building was 21 stories tall with a height of either . This made it New York City's second tallest building, behind the now-demolished Manhattan Life Insurance Building one block south, which stood at .
At the time of the American Surety Building's development in the 1890s, new buildings in New York City were starting to use steel frames, and caisson foundation technology was still relatively new. The American Surety Building was the first New York City skyscraper to use a full steel skeleton. The American Surety Building was also one of the earliest buildings on street corners whose articulation consisted of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column (namely a base, shaft, and capital). The design inspired those of other "tower" skyscrapers in the United States during the early 20th century.
Facade
The facade consists of Maine granite with a 3-story base, a 12-story shaft, and a 6-story capital, with two transitional stories at the 4th and 15th floors. A two-story penthouse is set back above the 21st floor. The Broadway and Pine Street elevations were both seven bays wide before an expansion in 1920–1922 brought the building to 11 bays on both sides. Price said that he wanted to "design a monumental structure", and as such he intended the facade to resemble "a campanile with four pilaster faces, the seven flutes represented by seven rows of windows". The windows on upper stories were originally progressively recessed by per story, so that the 20th floor windows were recessed by ; this allowed sunlight to illuminate the upper stories while utilizing entasis for architectural effect. These windows were subsequently replaced with sash windows. Unlike previous buildings such as the Park Row Building, which typically only had one decorated facade, the American Surety Building had all of its facades decorated.