Equitable Building
- Architect
- Ernest R. Graham
- Year
- 1915
- Style
- Neoclassical
- City
- Manhattan, NY
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The Equitable Building rises at 120 Broadway in the Financial District, a 555-foot, 38-story office tower designed by Ernest R. Graham with Peirce Anderson as architect-in-charge, completed in 1915 in the Neoclassical style. It replaced the earlier Equitable Life Building, which burned down in 1912, and when it opened it was the largest office building in the world by floor area, with 1.2 million square feet of space. By the 1920s it had become the most valuable building in New York City.
the building
A column in steel. The building's massing follows the classical logic of a column, divided into three horizontal sections that read as base, shaft, and capital across its 38 stories.
the style
Graham designed the tower in the Neoclassical style, dressing an enormous speculative office block in the ordered vocabulary of base, shaft, and capital rather than in Gothic or purely commercial forms.
More on Neoclassicalthe architect
Ernest R. Graham led the project as designer, with Peirce Anderson serving as architect-in-charge of the work on site.
significance
The Equitable Building is a New York City Individual Landmark and a National Historic Landmark, also listed on the National Register and State Register of Historic Places, with the city designation dated June 25, 1996. Silverstein Properties has owned the building since 1980 and has carried out renovations.
nearby
- American Surety Company Building
- 140 Broadway
- World Trade Center twin towers
- 14 Wall Street
- Trinity Building
- Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York