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Exploring Lower Manhattan
J.P. Morgan Building
23 Wall Street, Trowbridge & Livingston, architects, 1913
At the corner of Wall and Broad streets, the financial crossroads of the world, sits the House of Morgan. J. Pierpont Morgan, Sr., the capitalist's capitalist – known throughout the world of finance, sought out by presidents and potentates – helped bankroll the industrialization of America. His influence was such that, during the financial Panic of 1907, he orchestrated everything from the rescue of trust companies to the bailout of the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1913, the year Morgan died (to be succeeded by his son, J.P. Morgan, Jr.), the company built a new bank on the corner it has occupied since 1873 – one of Wall Street's most valuable sites. With skyscrapers rising on all sides, and land values skyrocketing, the House of Morgan displayed its fabulous wealth by building its new headquarters no taller than the old – just four stories, though with foundations strong enough to support a forty-story tower is needed some day.
Luxurious but unmarked, like a prestigious private club, the Morgan building was nevertheless so well known that when, in 1920, a wagon exploded across the street killing 30 people, it was simply assumed – though never proven – that an anarchist bomb had been aimed at the bank. The pockmarks on the bank's Wall Street façade have been left deliberately unrepaired, and can still be seen today. |