28. Lee, Higginson & Company Bank Building
AKA: Bank of American International Building
Location: 37-41 Broad Street
Built: 1929
Architect: Cross & Cross
National Register Number: 06000476
Listed: June 7, 2006
Visited: August 31 and September 28, 2007
What people seem to remember of Lee, Higginson & Company, if they remember it all, is how it was eventually laid low by Swedish match king Ivar Kreuger's fraud. (A empire built on matches! It's like right out of Ben Katchor!) Lee Hig only spent a couple of years in this valuable piece of real estate (it cost $3.7 million) and sold it at a loss ($2.2 million) to the New York Stock Exchange, who sold it to a bank in 1941 for an even more hair-raising loss ($400,000!!). Until recently, the building had off-price apparel retailer Conway (Get it? Conway!) on the first floor, a mortifying loss of face for this elegant building. Today, the students of Claremont Prep School run through it, and the super-awesome Deco banking hall is used for the kind of private events unconnected sclhubs like myself don't get invited to. You can see a little bit of it from the outside: maybe one column, mosiaced with vines. Along with the midlevel Zodiac medallions on the exterior front, those vines are a near-subliminal advertisement for pagan nature worship hidden in the building's overall message of Classical Style stability and permanence.
Location: 37-41 Broad Street
Built: 1929
Architect: Cross & Cross
National Register Number: 06000476
Listed: June 7, 2006
Visited: August 31 and September 28, 2007
What people seem to remember of Lee, Higginson & Company, if they remember it all, is how it was eventually laid low by Swedish match king Ivar Kreuger's fraud. (A empire built on matches! It's like right out of Ben Katchor!) Lee Hig only spent a couple of years in this valuable piece of real estate (it cost $3.7 million) and sold it at a loss ($2.2 million) to the New York Stock Exchange, who sold it to a bank in 1941 for an even more hair-raising loss ($400,000!!). Until recently, the building had off-price apparel retailer Conway (Get it? Conway!) on the first floor, a mortifying loss of face for this elegant building. Today, the students of Claremont Prep School run through it, and the super-awesome Deco banking hall is used for the kind of private events unconnected sclhubs like myself don't get invited to. You can see a little bit of it from the outside: maybe one column, mosiaced with vines. Along with the midlevel Zodiac medallions on the exterior front, those vines are a near-subliminal advertisement for pagan nature worship hidden in the building's overall message of Classical Style stability and permanence.
Labels: Bank, Cross and Cross, Financial District
posted by Michael at
1:10 PM
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