United States Express Company Building
101 Greenwich Street | also 2 Rector Street, 64 Trinity Place | Financial District | built 1907
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1906
The 23-story United States Express Company headquarters, planned under Thomas Platt, is completed at Rector Street
Thomas C. Platt, the Republican leader nicknamed the Easy Boss, was president of the United States Express Company when architects Clinton & Russell filed plans in July 1905 for a 23-story headquarters on Rector Street, budgeted at $1.6 million. The building was finished in the fall of 1906. A second-floor arcade tied together the stations of the Sixth Avenue and Ninth Avenue elevated lines, and the company kept the lower floors for itself.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1908
The Carnegie Safe Deposit Company installs what a newspaper calls the world's largest steel vault
On January 24, 1908, the Carnegie Safe Deposit Company put in a vault that the press billed as the largest steel vault in the world. Bethlehem Steel made the plates from battleship-grade steel, and each door weighed 20 tons yet was balanced so finely that, as the Topeka State Journal put it, a child could swing it. The paper ran a photograph of one of the plates.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1908
The company's president, Thomas Platt, is hit with a sensational divorce suit by Mae Wood, who claims a secret marriage
On May 18, 1908, The Evening World gave its front page to Mae Catharine Wood's suit against Platt, who was president of the express company. She said they had married secretly at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in 1901, two years before he wed Lillian Janeway, while Platt insisted they were never married. She read his love letters aloud, but on May 27 the judge rejected her claim as forgery and perjury and sent her to the city prison unless she posted $5,000 bail.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1920
A lawyer with an office here prosecutes his own son-in-law for bigamy, attempted poisoning and arson
In July 1920, attorney Frank I. Finkler, who had offices in the building, acted as his own counsel against his son-in-law, John F. McNulty. Finkler charged him with bigamy, with attempting to poison the family, and with burning the house to hide a theft of $5,600 in Liberty Bonds. On July 18 Finkler's daughter fainted on the witness stand for nearly an hour; McNulty pleaded guilty to bigamy and drew two to five years in Sing Sing.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1925
Electric Bond and Share Company buys the building and adds three floors
The Electric Bond and Share Company bought the 23-story building at 2 Rector Street as its future home, The New York Times reported on January 12, 1925. The Times credited Thomas Platt's express company with erecting what was then thought the finest building of its kind. The new owners topped it with three more floors designed to echo Clinton & Russell's original style.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1981
Houston Astros owner John McMullen buys the building for a reported $23 million
In March 1981, John J. McMullen, the owner of the Houston Astros, bought 2 Rector Street. Trade sources told The New York Times the price was $23 million, which would be more than $77 million in 2024 dollars. The building was renovated by Montroy Andersen DeMarco in 2018 and gained the address 101 Greenwich Street.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The United States Express Bldg - 2 Rector Street (101 Greenwich)Daytonian in Manhattan
Nearby
- Trinity Commons68 Trinity Place | 3 entries
- American Express Company Stables46 Trinity Place | 5 entries
- Augustine Lawrence House94 Greenwich Street | 5 entries
- American Stock Exchange Building86 Trinity Place | 12 entries
- Downtown Community House105 Washington Street | 3 entries
- Trinity Church75 Broadway | 19 entries