70 Pine Street

70 Pine Street (formerly known as the 60 Wall Tower, Cities Service Building, and American International Building) is a 67-story, residential building in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Built from 1930 to 1932 by energy conglomerate Cities Service Company (later Citgo), the building was designed by the firm of Clinton & Russell, Holton & George in the Art Deco style. It was Lower Manhattan's tallest building and the world's third-tallest building upon its completion.
70 Pine Street occupies a trapezoidal lot on Pearl Street between Pine and Cedar Streets. It features a brick, limestone, and gneiss facade with numerous setbacks. The building contains an extensive program of ornamentation, including the Cities Service Company's triangular logo and solar motifs. The interior features included escalators at the base and double-deck elevators linking the tower's floors. A three-story penthouse, intended for Cities Service's founder Henry Latham Doherty, was instead used as a public observatory.
70 Pine Street's construction was funded through a public offering of stock, rather than a mortgage loan. Despite having been built during the Great Depression, the building was profitable enough that it broke even by 1936, and 90 percent of its space was occupied five years later. The American International Group (AIG) bought the building in 1976, and it was acquired by another firm in 2009 after AIG went bankrupt. The building and its first floor interior were designated as official New York City landmarks in June 2011. In 2016, the building became a luxury rental residential property.
Site
70 Pine Street is in the Financial District of Manhattan, on a plot bounded by Pine Street to the south, Pearl Street to the east, and Cedar Street to the north. The roughly trapezoidal site covers , measuring on Pine and Cedar Streets by on Pearl Street. The terrain slopes downward to the east, toward Pearl Street, so that there is an upper lobby (accessed from Pine Street) and a lower lobby (accessed from Pearl Street). Neighboring buildings include 56 Pine Street and the Down Town Association building to the northwest; 90–94 Maiden Lane to the north; 48 Wall Street to the southwest; and 60 Wall Street to the south.
Architecture
70 Pine Street is a 67-story building rising . The roof is tall while the top story is high. Like its contemporaries, 70 Pine Street has a Gothic-like spire-topped appearance. The architectural firm Clinton & Russell, Holton & George designed 70 Pine Street in the Art Deco style; the structure was the last large commission by these architects. Of that firm's principals, Thomas J. George was likely the most involved with the design. James Stewart & Company was the general contractor, Taylor Fichter Steel Construction was the structural engineer, and John M. Parrish was the project's general superintendent.
The building was constructed as part of an ongoing skyscraper race in New York City, which resulted in the city having the world's tallest building from 1908 to 1974. When completed, 70 Pine Street was the third-tallest building in the world, after the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building in Midtown Manhattan. The building exceeded 40 Wall Street, the Manhattan Company's building, by to be Lower Manhattan's tallest building. It was the last skyscraper to be built in Lower Manhattan prior to World War II, and was the tallest building in Lower Manhattan until the 1970s, when the World Trade Center was completed. With the collapse of the World Trade Center in the September 11 attacks, it regained the status of the tallest Lower Manhattan building until the completion of the new One World Trade Center in 2014.
Form
70 Pine Street contains numerous setbacks on its exterior. Though setbacks in New York City skyscrapers were mandated by the 1916 Zoning Resolution in order to allow light and air to reach the streets below, they later became a defining feature of the Art Deco style. To maximize rentable space while also complying with the 1916 Zoning Resolution, the setbacks are placed at regular intervals, forming a diagonal line. The setbacks on the northern and southern elevations, and those on the western and eastern elevations, alternate with each other.
The building's 11th through 31st floors gradually step back from the base. The building's shaft begins above the 32nd floor and rises to the 54th or 56th floor, where the corners of the shaft taper off. The intermediate levels contain smaller setbacks, which were used as private terraces for the offices on the respective floors. There were multiple setbacks on each side, so the upper floors contained up to 20 sides. The top stories are one-fourth the size of the lowest stories.
Above the 67th-floor observation deck is the building's spire, composed of a glass lantern rising , topped by a stainless steel pinnacle extending another . The spire rises and weighs . The author Dirk Stichweh characterized the spire as giving the impression of a mountain peak covered with snow. The spire had a beacon, which was described as being "visible for 200 miles at sea and inland", though in reality the beacon could only be seen from away. W. Parker Chase, writing in 1932, characterized the spire as being "almost sensational in its 'differentness'".
Facade
The entrance portals and lower-story windows are lavishly decorated. The lower stories of the facade are covered with Indiana Limestone, placed above a water table of Minnesota granite. Red-and-black Morton gneiss wraps the ground floor. The upper stories are clad with four shades of buff-colored brick, which darken toward the building's peak. Each setback is surrounded by a parapet with a limestone coping. An extensive lighting system highlighted the building's features at night, consisting of 400-watt lamps. The presence of the lamps was influenced by Cities Service's role as an energy provider. An early publicist for 70 Pine Street said that Cities Service founder Henry Latham Doherty was personally involved in the structure's design, and that "he insisted on dignity with beauty, to the absolute avoidance of the garish, the flamboyant, and the over colorful." Doherty wanted the building to appear "exclusive, rich, yet simple and even alittle severe".
70 Pine Street was one of the first buildings to use aluminum extensively on its facade. Cliff Parkhurst of the Parkhurst Organization designed the aluminum ornamentation of 70 Pine Street. These ornamental features include reliefs above each set of entrance doors; spandrels with sharp arrises above the lower-story windows; and a ventilation grille on Cedar Street. The reliefs above the doors are designed with motifs of butterflies and sunflowers, which appear as an abstract pattern from a distance. In addition, there were 6,000 windows, ten million bricks, of marble, and of steel used in 70 Pine Street's construction. The black and pink marble in the building was transported from Minnesota and Tennessee.
Entrances
The building has five entrances in total. Four primary entrances, two on Pine Street and two on Cedar Street, which all lead to the main lobby. Another entrance on Pearl Street, which was formerly located under the Third Avenue elevated line, is more simply designed and leads to a lobby in the lower level. All of these streets are narrower than the typical street in Manhattan: Pine Street is wide while Cedar Street is wide. Because of the slope of the terrain, the western entrances are at the same level at the street, and the eastern entrances are accessed by short flights of steps rising from the street. All four entrances are designed with Art Deco patterns.
The eastern entrances on Pine and Cedar Streets are near the centers of these elevations; they consist of large four-story portals with stepped arches. Both arches are divided by a limestone pillar that contains a freestanding limestone relief of 70 Pine Street. These pillars, each , may have been designed by Rene Paul Chambellan and were fairly accurate in their detailing. Architectural critic Robert A. M. Stern wrote that 70 Pine Street's reliefs "surveyed the crowds of workers as a carved Madonna would bless the pilgrims of a Gothic cathedral." There were three metal doors to either side of the pillars. Above the doors were four tiers of sash windows; the lowest such tier was originally composed of glass louvers, which reduced wind pressure when the doors were being opened, but these were later replaced with glass panes. Along the interior reveals of both portal arches are reliefs containing the triangular logo of Cities Service. Inside each entrance were staircases leading to the upper and lower lobbies.
The western entrances on Pine and Cedar Streets are located near the western end of the building and are two stories tall. Each portal contains two sets of revolving doors.
Interior
At the time of 70 Pine Street's construction, developers had to consider skyscrapers' profitability in conjunction with height. 70 Pine Street was designed to accommodate between 7,000 and 8,000 employees, more than nearly every other skyscraper at the time. The interior spaces were thus designed with high capacity in mind. The building contains of interior space. When it opened, there was of gross floor area, of which was available for lease. Offices were arranged in a "U" shape, wrapping around the mechanical core on the north, east, and south. The northern and southern elevations of the facade are staggered because of the setbacks, maximizing natural light in each office.
Lobby
The first-floor lobby is designed in the Art Deco style and are arranged into six hallways. Two of the hallways are long, traveling north to south between the pairs of entrances on Pine and Cedar Streets, while three other hallways are long and travel west to east; there is also a wide central hall. The passages are wide, with the widest section of the lobby near Pine Street, where there is an information booth. The lobby is oriented slightly west, away from the elevated lines that formerly overshadowed Pearl Street, so that the westerly entrances could be located at ground level and so that the sky bridge to 60 Wall Street would be possible. The layout of the lobby allowed visitors to pass from Pine to Cedar Street.
Inside each entrance were retail spaces that faced the first-floor lobby. Four storefronts were located on the southern portion of the lobby. Until the early 2000s, these retail spaces contained such stores as "a drugstore, a bookstore, a tobacconist and a telegraph office". There are stairs on the southern portion of the lobby near Pine Street, as well as at the eastern portion near Pearl Street; these stairs ascend to the second floor and descend to the basement lobby. There were also escalators between every level from the basement to the sixth floor, near the western entrance on Pine Street.
The basement lobby is a simpler version of the first-floor lobby, serving mainly as a boarding area for the lower decks of 70 Pine Street's former double-deck elevators. The upper decks of these elevators were served from the main lobby; the elevators are arranged along the central hall and the northernmost west–east corridor. The elevator doors are designed with Native American motifs, such as zigzags and sunbursts, as well as Cities Service's logo. The elevator frames themselves contain stepped arches. One critic said the use of separate elevator lobbies would "cut the possibility of elevator flirtations exactly in half".
The lobby is decorated with marble walls, plaster ceilings, and aluminum metal grilles. Despite Doherty's desire for "dignity with beauty", the lobby is highly ornamented with multicolored marbles from Europe, including Roman and golden travertine, Belgian Black, Belgian Grand Antique, Champville, Levanto, and Tinos marbles. Most of the wall area is composed of yellow marble, divided by vertical piers of dark-red marble. The floors are composed of panels of white and pink marble, arranged as in a checkerboard. The ceiling is made of plaster and is supported by large jagged corbels. It is mostly painted white, except for colored bands of relief, which emanate from elements such as the lighting fixtures. Cliff Parkhurst furnished the elaborate metalwork in the lobby. A writer for The New York Times compared the building's lobby to "something Bernini would have designed if he’d lived to see the Jazz Age".
Other interior spaces
The basement contained a bank vault with the most advanced security systems available during that era. The basement also included a 400-seat eatery known as the Tower Restaurant, as well as other businesses such as a barber shop, beautician, chiropodist, florist, manicurist, hat cleaner–shoe shiner, sandwich shop, and photostat store. The fourth floor contained a clinic for people who worked in the building. One tenant, boxer Artie McGovern, operated an athletic club on the seventh floor, which was reportedly visited by over a thousand men daily and included a gymnasium, handball and squash courts, ping-pong tables, and golf facilities. On the 29th floor, there was a library filled with law books and documents, which was made available only to tenants. This library had 16,000 volumes and was staffed by a librarian with a bar certification.
Just below the observatory was a conference room with leather paneling. The 62nd through 64th floors contained Cities Service's executive offices, which also had exterior terraces. Doherty's office on the 61st floor was decorated in light colors and was designed to resemble a living room, with couches, chairs, small tables, and other furniture. Cities Service's oval-shaped boardroom occupied almost the entire 64th floor and had leather paneling and high ceilings.
, the skyscraper has several amenities, including an Elite fitness center by New York Sports Club on the lower level, a food market, and several lounges. Since its 2015–2016 conversion, 70 Pine Street includes 612 residential apartments. The residences are arranged as studio apartments or one- or two-bedroom units, and are generally outfitted with wooden floors. Another 132 units are run as hotel rooms by Lyric, a startup company funded by Airbnb. Retail tenants include a gourmet market and a high-end restaurant in the lobby. The building also contains a fitness and recreation center, including a screening room, bowling alley, indoor golf facility, and a game room in the former bank vault in the basement.
Observation deck
The top three floors were originally slated to contain Doherty's private penthouse apartment. The suite contained a gym and a squash court. Doherty's bed was designed on a motorized platform that could slide out onto the terrace. Doherty ultimately never lived in the space.
In July 1932, the private suite opened to the public as an observation deck, which comprised an open-air platform with a enclosed glass solarium on the 66th floor. The deck operated from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day and charged 50 cents for admission, although tenants and Cities Services employees received a 50-percent discount. It was served by a five-passenger elevator that rose through the floor slab and then retracted. The glass solarium contained doors at each of the corners, which were chamfered, as well as on the north and south sides; these doors led to one of six terraces with slate tiles. Decorations from France, Italy, and Spain were used in the observation deck. The deck charged 40 cents for admission in 1939; by comparison, the deck at the Empire State Building cost $1.10 to enter.
During World War II, the attraction was closed to the public because it overlooked the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard, an active military installation. Until the 1973 construction of the World Trade Center, it was the highest observation deck of any building in Lower Manhattan. The deck was permanently closed to the public before 1975. Afterward, it was used as a private office for AIG's employees. In 2019, as part of the building's 2010s conversion into residential apartments, James Kent and Jeff Katz turned the top four stories into the fine-dining restaurant SAGA, and on the ground floor Crown Shy, a 120-seat eatery. Crown Shy is an à la carte eatery, where dishes are ordered individually.
Mechanical features
Elevators
There are 24 elevators in total, with six banks of four elevators each in the first-floor lobby. There were eight double-deck elevators, which served alternating floors; six "express" elevators, which ran nonstop from the lobby to serve the upper floors; eight "local" elevators, which served the lower floors; and two freight elevators, which served all floors. All of the elevators were able to serve approximately 10,000 people every hour. In an emergency, it was estimated that the elevators, along with the escalators serving the lower floors, would be able to clear the building in 35 minutes. The elevator doors in the main lobby are ornately designed, resembling those at the Fred F. French Building, 608 Fifth Avenue, and the Chrysler Building. Each elevator door is a double-leaf door made of aluminum, with diamond and trefoil patterns, which were cast in one piece. The elevator doors in the lobbies contain octagonal relief panels sculpted by Chambellan. These reliefs alternately show a woman with an oil lamp and a man with an electric turbine.
Because of 70 Pine Street's small lot size, and the setbacks that make the upper floors even smaller, it would have been unprofitable under normal building practices if it were taller than 48 stories. Engineers from Otis Elevator Company told Doherty that double-deck elevators could solve the problem. As such, the company manufactured eight double-deck elevators, marking the first installation of Otis double-deck elevators. The double-deck elevators operated as express elevators, serving the 29th through 60th floors; another separate, single-deck elevator served the top six floors. The lower deck of each elevator served odd-numbered floors, while the upper deck served even-numbered floors. The Cedar Street portion of the first-floor lobby contained elevator banks that only served the building's lower floors, while the Pine Street portion contained elevators that served higher floors. During off-peak hours, only the upper deck of each double-deck elevator was used.
The Real Estate Record and Guide stated that the double-deck elevators, long anticipated by developers, were "permitted by special provision in the new elevator code". Compared to 11 or 14 standard elevators, the double-deck elevators reportedly saved $200,000 in construction costs and made available an additional , at a time when office space could be rented at an average rate of per year. Columnist Sam Love disagreed, saying that "the odds and the evens in the Cities Service Building will never see each other although they are the nearest neighbors", referring to the floor numbers. The double-deck elevators were removed in 1972 and replaced with single-story cabs. The double-deck elevators had reportedly been unpopular because the lower lobby entrance was not completed, and a proposed subway entrance was not opened. The Citigroup Center adopted the same idea in the 1970s, becoming possibly the first building in New York City after 70 Pine Street to have double-deck elevators.
Other features
At the 16th floor, a sky bridge connected 70 Pine Street with 60 Wall Street. There was another connection, a tunnel, between the two buildings. The connections enabled 70 Pine Street to initially claim a Wall Street address, which was perceived as more distinguished than a regular address in the Financial District. The bridge was destroyed in 1975 when the original 60 Wall Street building was demolished to make way for the current, larger building. At the time, it was one of a few sky bridges in the city. In 1979, a replacement bridge was built, connecting the sixth and seventh floors of 70 Pine Street to the seventh and eighth floors of 72 Wall Street.
When it opened, 70 Pine Street featured escalators between its first through sixth floors; the escalators operated in the peak direction, running upstairs in the morning and downstairs in the afternoon. The escalators reportedly enabled everyone on the basement through sixth floors to evacuate within 10 minutes. At the time of 70 Pine Street's completion, these stories housed Cities Service's clerical staff, and studies had shown that escalators occupied less space than elevators between these stories. This was one of the first uses of escalators in a major office building. Though the Empire State Building had also included escalators between its lobby and mezzanine, 70 Pine Street was modeled on the layout of a department store, the first office building in New York City to be designed in this manner. These escalators were hidden behind a false marble wall.
70 Pine Street also included a hot-water heating system, which replaced the standard boiler systems used in many contemporary skyscrapers. High-velocity pumps propelled water to radiators beneath the windows in each office. Each radiator contained movable louvers that could control the heat in each office. During the winter, a system of chilled water pipes cooled the lowest six stories. The building also had a "unit ventilating system", which occupied spaces over the radiators and inside the walls, providing ventilation without any dust or noise. Above each radiator were fans, which drew in air from either indoors or outdoors; filtered and warmed the air; and distributed the warm air throughout each office using ceiling ducts. This eliminated the need for fan rooms, which typically occupied large amounts of space, and also allowed tenants to close their windows during the summer, particularly before air conditioning became popular. Cities Service installed the unit-ventilating system on the lower part of the building above the fifth floor, and tenants on the upper stories could also install the system in their own office.
History
Henry Latham Doherty became successful by operating numerous companies in the manufactured-gas and electric utility sectors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He formed the Cities Service Company as a "light, heat, and power" firm in 1910, and Doherty's business interests grew extensively in subsequent years. At the time, his main offices were located at 60 Wall Street (built 1905 and demolished 1975), which he had occupied since 1906, and was located just south of the present building site. This structure measured 15 stories high at its front, on Wall Street, and 27 stories high at its rear, on Pine Street.
Development
Planning
Doherty, who already owned several Lower Manhattan properties, purchased 60 Wall Street in December 1924 with the aim of expanding the structure. Thomas J. George of Clinton & Russell presented plans in March 1927 for a modern slab-like structure on Wall Street. That October, George modified the plans, which now called for a 60-story structure shaped like a turret. Doherty formed the Pine Street Realty Company in January 1929, having failed to develop "a great business centre" near Battery Park. The firm of Clinton & Russell were retained as architects and proposed two plans for the site: a simple slab rising from the ground and a Gothic Revival design rising 60 floors. The New York City Department of Buildings rejected the proposed structure on Wall Street.
The Pine Street Realty Company then started buying land across Pine Street. The site was in the core of the Financial District, near the Third Avenue elevated line, and was surrounded by shorter buildings. The company bought twelve buildings in January 1929, forming a plot with . Another five plots were acquired via lease in November 1929, and the Cities Service Company was in negotiations to acquire the Down Town Association building as well. At the time, the company planned to build between 25 and 50 stories. Two more lots were leased in July 1930. In total, the Pine Street Realty Company acquired 23 lots, which all contained low-rise three- to five-story masonry buildings, at a total cost of $2 million, relatively cheap for the time. The economist W. C. Clark investigated the planned Cities Service Building's design and, in October 1929, spoke about his findings at the Engineers' Club. He found that taller buildings on small lots could be profitable, provided that these included double-deck elevators due to the lot's small size. As a result, the proposed Cities Service Building was most economically viable as a 63-story building.
Clinton & Russell, under the leadership of Thomas George, designed the new building in the Art Deco style. This contrasted with the firm's earlier works, which were largely designed in the classical style; the original partners had died before 70 Pine Street was constructed. Doherty submitted the building's architectural plans to the Department of Buildings in May 1930. The structure was slated to have 63 stories, including double-decker elevators due to the lot's small size, and it would cost $7 million. It was one of several buildings that Doherty planned to erect in Lower Manhattan, though none of the other projects were realized because of a lack of funding following the Great Depression. After the building plans were submitted, the height was increased to 66 stories, and a spire was added, increasing the total height to or . The Cities Service Building thus beat the 40 Wall Street to become the tallest building in Manhattan south of 34th Street. August H. Fromm oversaw the building's planning and construction.
Construction
Construction started in May 1930 and continued for 24 months. Demolition of existing buildings and site excavation began almost immediately after the building plans were submitted. The western portion of the site was the first to be cleared. Some of soil were removed from the site, which was excavated to as deep as . The foundation took 245,000 worker-hours to complete; it is composed of 49 piers, which are arranged in four rows and descend to the underlying bedrock. Work was complicated by the presence of a holdout tenant, Nik Coutroulas, a cafeteria operator who held a lease on one of the existing buildings and also operated a Lindy's franchise. Doherty's company could not reach a lease agreement with Coutroulas prior to the start of work. Coutrolas's building was demolished anyway and he sued Doherty for damages, eventually receiving a $5,000 compensation.
Construction was funded using a then-unconventional method of public offering. Henry L. Doherty & Co. sold $15.7 million of interest-free shares, described at the time as "financially unique among large New York office buildings". The company operated local branch offices in several cities, each of which had to raise a certain amount of money before October 1930. Each office had to meet a different quota: the Spokane, Washington, office had to raise $91,500, while the New York City office was required to raise $3 million. This avoided the need for the building's owners to take out a mortgage loan.
The project involved large amounts of materials, including 10 million bricks, of cement, and of steel. The steel structure was built at an average rate of three floors per week. The New York Times reported in April 1931 that the steel had been erected to the 27th floor. By mid-1931, steel frame construction had reached the 59th floor, while the facade had been built up to the 50th floor. At the time, 70 Pine Street's construction employed 600 workers, and the structure had no official name. To date, workers had been on the project for 119,000 hours without any major accidents. The spire was installed in October 1931. The sky bridge between 70 Pine Street and 60 Wall Street was completed in February 1932, at which point the building at 70 Pine Street became known as the 60 Wall Tower.
Cities Service ownership
By early 1932, the 60 Wall Tower was completed. The city's Department of Buildings gave the building a temporary occupancy certificate in March 1932, followed by a permanent certificate that August. The building was dedicated on May 13, 1932, Doherty's 62nd birthday. The event celebrated Doherty's reinstatement as executive of Cities Service after he had taken a six-year hiatus from the position due to health problems. It included a luncheon attended by 200 businessmen; the dedication of Doherty's bronze bust; the spire's floodlighting; and a radio announcement that Doherty made from the spire using then-new "moonbeam" technology. Cities Service also issued a pamphlet to advertise its new building.
Tenants had started moving into 70 Pine Street prior to its official dedication. Upon opening, the second through seventeenth floors were occupied by about 3,000 employees of Cities Service. The remaining floors were leased to a large range of tenants, including manufacturers, lawyers, accountants, and the Western Union Telegraph Company. At the time of the building's opening, its tenants included 31 law firms, 21 investment firms, eight insurance companies, and 18 companies in other industries. Most tenants on the upper floors were lawyers, who took advantage of the 29th-floor law library. The second and third floors were also occupied by the Emergency Unemployment Relief Committee. Additionally, more than 200 people worked for the building itself under the supervision of building manager Edgar J. Smith. These included an all-female staff of elevator operators, most of whom were redheads "recruited largely from the ranks of unemployed showgirls".
The building was reportedly two-thirds rented by 1933, but it did not reach 90 percent occupancy until 1941. Later tenants included the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which took space in 70 Pine Street in 1941. The radio station WGYN also established its studios and transmitter at 70 Pine Street when it was founded in December 1941, and WGYN continued to broadcast from there until May 1950. Cities Service refinanced the building with a $5.3 million, 20-year mortgage loan in March 1950.
One portion of 70 Pine Street was separately owned from the rest of the building and could be physically separated if necessary. This section, covering , was owned by the estate of aviator Cortlandt F. Bishop and leased to a wholly owned subsidiary of the Cities Service Company, Sixty Wall Tower Inc. In June 1950, the land under the building was placed for auction by the New York Trust Company on behalf of Bishop's estate. After World War II, Cities Service downsized its Manhattan staff and leased out several lower floors. Merrill was one such tenant, leasing ten floors in a 1957 transaction, and ultimately moving 3,400 of its 8,600 employees to 70 Pine Street by 1965. Though Cities Service became known as Citgo in 1965, the building retained the "Cities Service Building" name.
AIG ownership
Citgo announced in November 1973 that it would move its executive headquarters to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and sell off 70 Pine Street and several other buildings in Manhattan. The move would affect about 250 personnel at 70 Pine Street. Citgo subsequently moved to Tulsa in 1975. The following year, the building was purchased for $15 million by the American International Group (AIG), which wanted to double the amount of space available for its 500 New York City employees. 70 Pine Street was renamed the American International Building, and AIG workers moved into the structure over the next two years. AIG occupied the lowest 26 stories and leased out to other companies, such as law firms, securities firms, and brokerages.
Under AIG's ownership, the lobby was renovated, as was the observation deck, which became a private office. The sky bridge to Wall Street was demolished in 1975 when the previous building at 60 Wall Street was razed. By the 1990s, the building's tenants also included the Starr Foundation, which had been established by AIG founder Cornelius Vander Starr and paid no rent for its offices. AIG bought the nearby 175 Water Street in 1995 but kept its headquarters at 70 Pine Street. AIG refurbished the building's elevators in the late 1990s. Restoration architect HLW International used blueprints from Otis, the original elevators' manufacturer, to redesign the single-deck elevator cabs in the style of the original double-deck cabs.
70 Pine Street continued as AIG's world headquarters until the financial crisis of 2007–08, when the company went bankrupt and received a bailout from the U.S. government. To repay the federal government, AIG decided to sell its buildings and other assets in March 2009. AIG announced in June 2009 that it had reached an agreement to sell the building and to relocate. The building was acquired by developer Youngwoo & Associates and the Kumho Investment Bank, which spent a combined $150 million on 70 Pine Street and 72 Wall Street. This amounted to , about 80 percent less than what AIG could have received for the building before the 2000s financial crisis, according to Crain's New York Business.
Residential and hotel conversion
Youngwoo initially planned to renovate 70 Pine Street's upper stories into condominiums, which would be sold for . The lower floors were to be rented to office tenants for , a 25 to 30 percent decline from asking rates before the late-2000s recession. Because of an oversupply of office space in Lower Manhattan, few companies were willing to lease the of vacant office space at 70 Pine Street. Furthermore, a decline in demand for luxury condominiums in Manhattan, spurred by the late-2000s recession, prompted Youngwoo to cancel its condo-conversion plan. Kumho Investment Bank then hired Sciame Development to take over the project in 2011. That June, Kumho agreed to sell the building to MetroLoft Management. This prompted Sciame to sue Kumho for breach of contract.
MetroLoft finalized its acquisition in January 2012, with plans to turn 70 Pine Street into an apartment building or a combined hotel/apartment complex with about 1,000 total units. MetroLoft sold 70 Pine Street to Rose Associates later that year. Rose and DTH Capital transformed 70 Pine Street into a mixed-use building featuring luxury rental apartments and a variety of retail and restaurants starting in 2015. Leasing of the residential units started in December 2015. The renovation was completed the next year, with leasing beginning in February 2016. DTH and Rose obtained $375 million in financing from a syndicate led by Brookfield Properties in May 2017. This was replaced in 2019 with a $386 million mortgage loan from Goldman Sachs.
Unlike the top floors of other converted residential buildings, which were generally turned into penthouse apartments, Rose decided to add amenities to the top floors of 70 Pine Street. Space in 70 Pine Street's lobby and upper floors was originally set to contain restaurants by April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman, who withdrew from the project in July 2016. Ultimately, the upper-floor restaurant spaces hosted James Kent and Jeff Katz's restaurant Crown Shy, which opened in 2019. Mint House opened a 132-unit hotel for business travelers inside the building in November 2020. The Overstory bar opened on the 64th floor in August 2021, and the Saga restaurant opened atop the building later that year.
Critical reception and landmark designations
The completed building attracted attention from figures such as the photographer Weegee, who in 1946 took many photographs of the building's tenants and services. According to author Daniel Abramson, Weegee "was fascinated by this city within a city, its swift transportation, its towering height and subterranean depth, its busy thousands of tenants and visitors, and the unobtrusive, night-and-day efficiency of its service staff". The skyscraper was featured in pictures of Lower Manhattan, such as A New York Canyon, a 1932 image by W. K. Oltar-Jevsky. Other photographs, depicting seaplanes and blimps flying over 70 Pine Street, reinforced the building's association with the Jazz Age.
In 1981, architectural critic Paul Goldberger described 70 Pine Street, 1 Wall Street, and several buildings on nearby John Street as "an echo of the jazz age life". Goldberger wrote of the building's spire in 1983: "The lighting is simple and elegant. A lovely translucent glass crown forms the top of the Art Deco setback spire, and at night it glows softly in the midst of the somber financial district." Another Times critic wrote in 2005 that the lobby was "a paradigm of Art Deco style: sunburst ceilings, filigreed radiator grilles, marble floors in black and earth tones, and elevator doors emblazoned with zigzags and Aztec-like figures." The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) considered designating 70 Pine Street's exterior and its first-floor interior as city landmarks in March 2011, and the building was designated as such on June 21, 2011. When 70 Pine Street became a New York City landmark, The New York Times wrote: "With its tiered glass lantern and stainless steel spire, it is an icon of the Lower Manhattan skyline."
Incidents
In 1976, two thousand tenants were evacuated after a fire broke out on the eighth floor, causing several minor injuries. In November 2016, Justin Casquejo, a thrill-seeking teenage free solo climber and stunt performer, hung from 70 Pine Street. He was charged with misdemeanor base jumping and trespassing for climbing on the tower.
See also
List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan below 14th Street
List of tallest buildings in New York City
List of tallest buildings in the United States
List of tallest buildings in the world
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
External links
70 Pine Street on CTBUH Skyscraper Center
Gallery of photographs
American International Building at Emporis.com
1930s architecture in the United States
Art Deco architecture in Manhattan
Art Deco skyscrapers
Financial District, Manhattan
Insurance company headquarters in the United States
New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan
New York City interior landmarks
Office buildings completed in 1932
Residential skyscrapers in Manhattan
Citgo