56. Corbin Building

Location: 11 John Street/192 Broadway
Built: 1888-1889
Architect: Francis H. Kimball
National Register Number: 05001287
Listed: December 18, 2003
Visited: February 15 and 19, 2008



I like it now that this blog project forced me to think about it some, but I am reasonably certain that I didn't pay one second of attention to the Corbin Building when I worked downtown. I noticed its next-door neighborhood, 194-196 Broadway: it was a TGIFriday's, and it was sky-blue. By contrast, the Corbin was taller, but it was camouflaged by insensitive storefronts and decades of pollution that turned its brick a brackish brown. Black and white photography disguises the decay, and makes its dourness seem intentional--today it looks like a rugged parade of arches in a handsome funk.



The Corbin stands alone now, as its neighbors were demolished by the Metropolitan Transit Authority to make way for the Fulton Street Transit Center. The Center's a definite Good Thing, as it'll link up a dozen subway lines currently connected via a maze of grimy pathways--but the original plan didn't include the Corbin. After some tussling, preservationists were able to win a promise from the MTA that they wouldn't knock it down; in fact, the MTA would incorporate the Corbin into the Center, with the building providing a grand entrance from John Street. Great idea, but the renderings of the design left a lot to be desired. On one side, you've got a egg-shaped "oculus" rising from a gleaming box that dominates almost an entire city block--and uncomfortably squeezed over to the side, you have this thin, dark slab of a building (20 by 161 feet and eight stories!) of a different age, aesthetic, size, color, and scale. You couldn't even call the two structures "contrasting" or "in juxtaposition," rather than completely indifferent towards one another.

Since the economy is melting like a snowman in a global warming world, the Center has been scaled back to the point where there'll likely be no above-ground structure at all. I cannot find anything on the web about what the Corbin's fate is now--most of the updates about the Center seem to blindly re-hash of old news about the building. It'd be sad to have this lonely old slab come all this way into the 21st Century only to be denied modern-day love!

41f. Wall Street Historic District

Location: Roughly bounded by Cedar Street, Maiden Lane, Pearl Street, Bridge Street, South William Street, Greenwich Street, and Trinity Place.
Built: N/A
Architect: N/A
National Register Number: 07000063
Listed: February 2, 2007
Visited: December 30, 2007



The AIA Guide to New York City calls this the Old Morgan Guaranty Building (Francis Kimball, 1907), but just about nobody else does, instead preferring "37 Wall Street" or the "Trust Company of America Building." The fate of this Beaux Arts beaut neatly summarizes the evolution of the district: from a home of a financial giant (one that eventually lent its genetic material to what we now call JPMorgan Chase) to not only apartments (arrrgh, again) but a branch of Tiffany's. Along with the Hermès around the corner, this is yet another recognition that Wall Street (qua the location) is a tourist power point, a place to spend money, not make it.



How did this happen? Obviously, 9/11 had a lot to with this new state of affairs: once security checkpoints on Wall, Broad, Nassau and Exchange streets were in place, the New York Stock Exchange and its environs became virtually traffic-free, a walker's paradise in a city where most drivers seem to have an unconscious desire to simply run pedestrians down. Yet the tourist crowds of last week--when it seemed I was as likely to overhear people speaking in French as English--weren't here as recently as five years. (As far as I remember, anyway.) I think this may be due to the way the threat of terrorism has receded in our consciousness. Rather than a likely target for a suicide bomber or suitcase nuke, Wall Street feels safe, safe enough to walk through in the middle of the night without any trouble, something I did a lot last year to my great pleasure. (A pity most of the night photos I took came out all blurry 'n' shit. A tripod, next time.) In 2001 and 2002, Wall Street's social geography was determined by fear; in 2007 and 2008, it's determined by our collective forgetfulness of that fear.