The Manhattan Life Insurance Building was a tower on
Broadway in the
Financial District
A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies, and other related finance corporations have their headquarters offices. In major cities, financial districts often host ...
of
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
.
History
The original structure at 64–66 Broadway was completed in 1894 to the designs of the architects of
Kimball & Thompson, and was slightly extended north in 1904 to 68–70 Broadway. It was the first
skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Most modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise bui ...
to pass in Manhattan.
The building was sold at least twice. In 1926, the
Manhattan Life Insurance Company sold the building to Frederick Brown, who then re-sold it to the
Manufacturer's Trust Company a few weeks later. Then, in 1928, Central Union Trust Company, whose headquarters were in adjacent structures to the north, bought 70 Broadway for an undisclosed sum, although the building was assessed at that time at $4 million. Following the Central Union Trust Company's sale of the buildings to the north to the
Irving Trust Company, which then built a new skyscraper at
1 Wall Street, Central Union Trust moved to the Manhattan Life Building
and modified the structures at 60, 62, and 70 Broadway.
The building was demolished to make way for an annex to 1 Wall Street, completed in 1965. Sources vary about whether the year of demolition was 1963 or 1964.
[ ''"In 1936, the Manhattan Life Insurance Company relocated its offices to One-Hundred-Twenty West 57th Street in midtown Manhattan. Then, catastrophe arrived when the building was only 69 years old; in a 1963 act of utter desecration, the Manhattan Life Insurance Building was demolished."'']
See also
*
List of skyscrapers
This is a list of the tallest buildings. Tall buildings, such as skyscrapers, are intended here as enclosed structures with continuously occupiable floors and a height of at least . Such definition excludes non-building structures, such as tow ...
*
List of early skyscrapers
References
{{Financial District, Manhattan
1890s architecture in the United States
1894 establishments in New York (state)
1963 disestablishments in New York (state)
Beaux-Arts architecture in New York City
Broadway (Manhattan)
Buildings and structures demolished in 1963
Commercial buildings completed in 1894
Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan
Financial District, Manhattan
Former skyscrapers
Skyscraper office buildings in Manhattan