S. Jarmulowsky Bank Building
- Architects
- Lafayette Goldstone William L. Rouse
- Year
- 1912
- Style
- Beaux-Arts
- City
- Manhattan, NY
The S. Jarmulowsky Bank Building at 54 Canal Street rose 12 stories in 1912, designed by William L. Rouse and Lafayette Goldstone in the Beaux-Arts style for banker Sender Jarmulowsky, who had run his bank on the Lower East Side since 1873. When World War I broke out two years after completion, German depositors rushed to withdraw funds to send home, and the bank failed soon after.
the building
The lost tempietto. Until 1990, the building was topped by a tempietto rising 50 feet to a dome ringed by eagles, modeled on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. Local legend holds it was added purely to out-top the nearby Jewish Daily Forward building. It was destroyed in a 1990 renovation.
Facade materials. The tower is clad in limestone on its lower stories and architectural terracotta above, typical Beaux-Arts dressing for a bank meant to project stability from the street.
the style
Rouse and Goldstone worked in the Beaux-Arts idiom, giving the immigrant bank a monumental, classically dressed presence on the Lower East Side.
More on Beaux-Artsthe architect
William L. Rouse and Lafayette Goldstone designed the building together in 1912; the record here names only their partnership on this commission.
significance
Designated a New York City Individual Landmark (LP-02363) in 2009. Plans surfaced in 2013 to convert the structure to a hotel.
nearby
- Eldridge Street Synagogue
- New York Public Library, Chatham Square Branch
- Edward Mooney House
- Tenement Museum
- Beth Hamedrash Hagadol
- Mariner's Temple