Freedman's Bank Building
- Architect
- Cass Gilbert
- City
- Washington, DC
The Freedman's Bank Building stands at Madison Place and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, on the east side of Lafayette Square across from the Treasury Building. It is the third structure on this site: an 1831 house here was seized by the federal government during the Civil War and replaced by the headquarters of the Freedman's Savings Bank, chartered by Congress in 1865 to serve recently emancipated people. Mismanagement, fraud, and the Panic of 1873 collapsed the bank in 1874, wiping out the equivalent of $75 million held by more than 60,000 African American depositors. The present building, designed by Cass Gilbert, was built on the same ground as the Treasury Annex.
the building
A Lafayette Square address. The building adjoins the Howard T. Markey National Courts Building to the north and the former Riggs National Bank to the east, placing the former Treasury Annex among the cluster of government buildings ringing Lafayette Square just across from the White House.
the architect
Cass Gilbert, described as a major American architect, designed the building as the Treasury Annex on the site of the failed Freedman's Savings Bank.
nearby
- Riggs National Bank
- American Security and Trust Company
- W. B. Hibbs and Company Building
- Treasury Department
- Saint John's Church
- National Metropolitan Bank