Chase Manhattan Plaza in Line To Be Landmark
One Chase Manhattan Plaza, one of the signature buildings of Lower Manhattan’s skyline, is slated to become a landmark. The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has a hearing on the building scheduled for Tuesday. Landmark status, which restricts changes to the building and site, would ultimately require approval from the mayoral-controlled LPC.
The Skidmore Owings & Merrill-designed tower rises 60 stories, and was completed for Chase Manhattan bank in 1961. At 2.2 million square feet, it was one of the first modernist, International Style skyscrapers to rise in the Financial District, contrasting with the distinctly older-style architecture of towers such as the Woolworth Building, the American International Building, and 40 Wall Street.
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That's ironic, given that it could never be built today, thanks to the out-of-control "Community" Boards that shoot down anything they can claim "looks different from what I saw when I first moved to New York as a college freshman in 1973."
Chase Manhattan Plaza may be pretty ugly, but at least in 1961 the city didn't have committees of Socialists to staunch any attempt to develop or change with the times. If they had, we'd all be in a much less interesting city today, and one that businesses would have long ago fled for Jersey and Connecticut to get decent office space.