American Surety Company Building, Manhattan: architect, style and history

The American Surety Building at 100 Broadway, also known as the Bank of Tokyo Building, is an early skyscraper at Pine Street and Broadway in the Financial District, facing Trinity Church, designed by Bruce Price in a Neo-Renaissance style and later expanded by Herman Lee Meader. Built between 1894 and 1896 as a 21-story structure, it stands 388 feet tall with either 23 or 26 stories and was the second tallest building in New York City when completed.

the building

Column-shaped facade. The facade of Maine granite is organized into three horizontal sections mirroring a column's base, shaft, and capital, making the American Surety Building one of the earliest New York City skyscrapers to use that tripartite layout, ornamented with sculptural elements by J. Massey Rhind.

Early steel-frame construction. The building was among Manhattan's first to use steel framing and curtain wall construction, employing an interior skeleton of structural steel along with a cantilevered steel structure for its foundations.

the style

Designed in a Neoclassical, Neo-Renaissance idiom by Bruce Price, the building's tripartite base-shaft-capital composition became an influential model for early skyscraper design.

the architect

Bruce Price designed the original building, with a later expansion carried out by Herman Lee Meader.

significance

The building is a New York City Individual Landmark (LP-01934), designated 6/24/1997.

nearby

14 Wall Street 190 ft · Neoclassical · 1912
Equitable Building 190 ft · Neoclassical · 1915
Trinity Church and Graveyard 270 ft · Gothic Revival · 1698
Trinity Building 310 ft · 1907
New York Stock Exchange 340 ft · Neoclassical · 1903
Federal Hall 360 ft · Greek Revival · 1842

All 413 buildings in Manhattan