Status Complete Construction started 1967 Height 195 m Completed 1969 | Type Office Roof 640 ft (195 m) Floors 50 | |
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Opening 1970 (Reopened of 2014) Owner Brookfield Office Properties Similar 2 New York Plaza, 55 Water Street, 750 Seventh Avenue, One Liberty Plaza, 60 Wall Street | ||
1 New York Plaza is an office building in New York City's Financial District, built in 1969 at the intersection of South and Whitehall Streets. It is the southernmost of all Manhattan skyscrapers.
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Map of 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, USA
The building is 640 feet (195 m) tall with 50 floors. The building was designed by William Lescaze & Assocs. and Kahn & Jacobs. The building has 2.556 million square feet of office space. There is a 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) retail concourse on the lower level.
The facade was designed by Nevio Maggiora, consisting of a boxlike "beehive" pattern with the windows recessed within, made of aluminum-clad wall elements resembling a type of thermally activated elevator button popular at the time of construction.
Notable former occupants of One New York Plaza include Salomon Brothers in its heyday, and Goldman Sachs, while current tenants are Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, Morgan Stanley, and Nature Publishing Group.
History
In 1959, the City of New York attempted to acquire through eminent domain the land under this development as part of the Battery Park Urban Renewal Area. The plan involved consolidating several blocks into a "superblock" for public housing. When that plan fell through, the city hoped to entice the New York Stock Exchange to relocate to the property. However, the owner of the property—the firm of Atlas McGrath—successfully sued to retain their land, claiming they were more than willing to develop the site privately.
On August 5, 1970, the building suffered a fire in which two people were killed and 35 injured. The deaths were caused after an occupied elevator was "summoned" to the burning floor when one of the thermally-activated call buttons—designed to react to a warm finger tapping it—reacted instead to the heat of the fire on that floor.
The building was renovated in 1994, and repainted from a dark Black/Grey Color scheme to a lighter White/Light Grey color. Today One New York Plaza stands as one of the more prominent buildings of Lower Manhattan, being the southernmost skyscraper on Manhattan.
Incidents
One New York Plaza's air-conditioning chiller depends on Con Ed's New York City steam system. On August 11, 2001, a steam turbine failed in the basement, and the damage from the resulting explosion disrupted Goldman's market-making NASDAQ activities for the day.
In October 2012, the building was heavily damaged by Hurricane Sandy. An estimated 23 million gallons of water flooded the lower levels of the building. The retail concourse was completely submerged and needed to be completely gut-renovated. Office tenants were allowed to return starting November 17, 2012 and the retail concourse reopened in the winter of 2014.