60 Wall Street was first conceived in the late 1970s as a part of a slew of office buildings slated for the Financial District. (1) American International Group and the Bank of New York, who owned the sites at 54-70 and 52 Wall Street respectively, began commissioning architects to draw up plans for an office tower. (1) Demolition of existing structures on the lot began in the early 1980s, however, a denial of a tax abatement by the Industrial Commercial Incentive Board halted plans to develop the now empty lot further (2). However, by 1983, Park Tower Realty purchased the site from BNY (AIG having earlier sold their share to BNY), with the goal to construct a “a building of the 21st century, but (sic) its design will be compatible with the landmark structures that surround it.” (3)  

Purchase of air rights from above 55 Wall Street was unanimously approved by the Landmarks Preservation Council, with the developers agreeing to add a public atrium at the base of the tower, the genesis of the spectacular 1980s time capsule occupying the base today. (4) Roche and Dinkeloo were selected as the building’s architects in 1984, beating out Helmut Jahn’s three proposals for the site. (1) JP Morgan and Company was finally able to secure the tax break from the Industrial Commercial Incentive board, agreeing to occupy the structure with Park Tower as the developer, consolidating its Manhattan operations into just three buildings. (5) Representing the changing times, JP Morgan custom designed their offices using cutting-edge computer technology, removing a story from the original plan as well as placing dining rooms for the purpose of giving employees complimentary lunches. (6) At the close of the decade, JP Morgan officially relocated to 60 Wall Street, moving over 70% of its employees to the site (7) and paying some of the highest property tax rates in the city by the start of the 1990s.  

However, by the time of their merger with Chase Manhattan Bank in 2000 (8), the space no longer was practical for the firm and JP Morgan Chase sold the building to Deutsche Bank in April 2001 for $600 million. (9) After the September 11th attacks and the subsequent damage to their headquarters at 130 Liberty Street, Deutsche Bank moved into the tower earlier than expected (10) and established it as their temporary (later permanent) headquarters. The building also played a part in the revitalization of Lower Manhattan, hosting art exhibits and contributing to the Manhattan skyline’s glow by lighting its roof at night. (11) Deutsche Bank also received a grant from the government to stay in the tower following an exodus to Midtown after 9/11 (9). Adding to its historical significance, 60 Wall Street’s atrium was at the center of the Occupy Wall Street protests, with protest leaders meeting in the atrium to organize, pushing the owners to prohibit loitering in the space (12). In 2018, Deutsche Bank announced plans to move to the Time Warner Center on Columbus Center by 2021, prompting the building’s owner to hire CBRE group to market the now vacant tower (13). As part of preparations for new tenants, Paramount and GIC (a Singaporean Wealth Fund jointing owning the building with Paramount) announced a $250 million renovation designed by architects Kohn Pederson and Fox (14). This would include gutting the iconic atrium and replacing it with a more contemporary, but more commonplace space, as well as changing the building’s intently designed façade. In June 2020, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission put these plans on hold by rejecting this initial proposal (15) and requiring the team to come back with a proposal that is more harmonious with the landmarked building at 55 Wall. 

Vacant

At the heart of Wall Street, arguably the global center of finance, 60 Wall Street represents an attempt to marry the historic architecture of the thoroughfare with modern design considerations and tenant needs. 60 Wall was developed at a time when architects were rethinking the tenets of Modern design that had dominated skyscraper construction in Lower Manhattan since the Post-War years, and instead synthesize new technologies with earlier theories of skyscraper design. 60 Wall Street is a masterclass in demonstrating this Postmodern ideal, using columns in a schematic way to give emphasis to each section and to the overall form. 

The basic columnar parti of the tower is inspired by Adolf Loo’s Chicago Tribune Tower, dividing the tower into three distinct sections: base, shaft, and capital. The four-story base is notable for its 70-foot grand arcade of paired columns standing on podiums, intentionally designed to harmonize with its neighbor 55 Wall Street. Eight pairs of free-standing columns frame the portico with two additional sets of columns flanking the public plaza entrance on the western-most end of the south-facing façade. The massive granite columns lay on plinths that increase in height as the building slopes to the east, while the chamfered corners mimic the corner treatment of the structure. The columns appear as mirrored images, with the base and capitals repeated as nearly identical inverted forms. Roche’s treatment of columnar base is not directly derived from historical quotations, instead relying on abstraction to demonstrate the ideal of the column and its constituent parts.  

 The base is home to the spectacular atrium, an example of a privately owned public space (POPS) that exemplifies the Postmodern style. Ten freestanding columns support a latticed and mirrored ceiling, evoking a vaguely Egyptian hypostyle hall. Fan vaulting leaps from each column capital, imbuing their silhouette with an organic quality. The floor of the space consists of a decorative pattern of pink, green and white granite, that combined with Roche’s original Ficus, emphasizes an allusion to nature and the classical division of space. The practical forest of columns in the atrium adds to this appearance, giving it a feel reminiscent of a Moorish Garden. The intricate latticework of the ceiling extends down to walls, composed of Carrera White marble and Laguna Green granite that is “enlivened with seasonal plants and granite planters and Ficus trees as well as a waterfall.” (Stern, New York 2000, 245.) The axial plan runs north to south with the central bay dedicated to circulation and the narrower side aisles functioning as public lounging areas. Roche’s fascination with lattice and mirror accentuates the sense of openness of the space and the greenhouse typology harkens back to Roche’s earliest design the landmarked Ford Foundation building on 42nd Street (1963-68). The refracting and reflecting of the wall and ceiling mirrors highlight the 1980s evolution of Roche’s lattice mirror work that can also be seen on the interior of the landmarked Ambassador Grill (1975-76). On the Western wall, the two central bays feature a rock and water element (no longer active) surrounded by radiating lattice grids. Storefronts (now closed) along the eastern wall provided retail and dining options. A subway entrance occupies the northwest corner. This distinct logic underpinning Roche’s design for the tower and atrium seems to have been chosen for mass appeal, according to Roche himself “people to a large extent, don’t see modern architecture in a positive way because the aesthetic is too remote for them, too specialized.” (Quoted in Modern Classicism, 204) Roche’s atrium is an attempt to create an approachable public space that provides a sense of refuge and calm from one of the most bustling streets in Lower Manhattan. 

Rising above the base is the 51-story main shaft of the building, square in plan with a central indentation on all four sides and recessed corners. The shaft rises uninterrupted to the 42nd floor, where a projecting band knits together the vertical elements of the shaft as well as forms a base for the expression of the next eight floors. These eight floors are marked by groupings of 15-foot bay windows, four on each face, arranged in such a way that when provided with their own base and capital, it is reminiscent of eight-story plasters supporting the 51st floor. With the 51st floor being projected out slightly, its composition suggests a cornice. This lies below the crown of the structure, a 40-foot-high copper green mansard roof containing the building’s mechanical equipment. 
 
During the design development of 60 Wall, a total of 29 different schemes were proposed, all giving considerable care to blend the tower to the base and creating a visual bridge to the other historic structures on Wall Street. For example, cornice lines at the base were added to complement the height of the original Merchants House building at 55 Wall as well as create a setback effect. A 1989 presentation by KRJDA on the completed tower shows how careful consideration of the exterior evolved through eight different designs.  
 
The central lobby entrance is bifurcated by a single column whose capital appears to merge seamlessly into a cavetto, restating the interrelationship of the parts to the whole and the column-as-building metaphor. Vertical bronze mullions at the main lobby entrance evoke Art Deco detailing, this architectural synecdoche further alluding to the nearby entrance portals of the iconic former City Service Building at 70 Pine.  
 
Notable critic Ada Louise Huxtable, despite her skepticism of overt historicism in contemporary design, conceded that 60 Wall was one of the most striking skyscrapers of the decade and admired Roche’s skillful handling of the tower’s visual language. In The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered (University of California Press, 1993), she writes: "[It] securely challenges Loos's famous Tribune tower column in its unconventional use of that eternal and indefatigable classical theme. What separates Loos's paradoxical radicalism and Roche's rethinking of the matter, however, is the way Roche's reinterpreted classicism serves as a solidly dramatic framework for the evocation of architectural and cultural values through calculated visual messages that double as abstract architectonic devices... There is no mistaking Roche's greater mastery of this curious form." (72) Fellow critic Paul Goldberger concurred, writing "[I]t has a presence on the skyline that is both energetic and dignified. … Also like its distinguished older neighbors, this building pays attention to the street: it is not a piece of sculpture plopped down on open space, but a building designed to strengthen the fabric of the streets of which it is a part. … This tower of gray granite and reflective glass mimics the form of a classical column...but it does so in such a way as to reinvigorate historical form with modern meaning, which is very different from slavishly copying it for easy effect." (The New York Times, "A Tower Competes With Wall Street's Last Golden Age," 3/4/1990) 

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