Trinity Building

111 Broadway | also 95 Trinity Place | Financial District | built 1905

Open on the map5 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1857

    The American Institute of Architects is founded in Richard Upjohn's earlier Trinity Building

    The five-story Trinity Building of 1853, designed by Richard Upjohn, stood on this site before the present tower. It had no elevator, but was the only big New York office building with a fireplace in every room. Its basement held the Exchange Salesroom for real estate auctions, and Upjohn, H. H. Richardson and other architects kept offices there. In 1857 the American Institute of Architects was founded in the building.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1902

    United States Realty buys the old Trinity Building to replace it with a Gothic tower

    In 1902 the United States Realty and Construction Company, with the Lawyers Title Insurance Company, bought the old building from the Fearing estate and Frederick Ayer of Boston. The firm hired Francis H. Kimball to design two companion office towers, this one and the U.S. Realty Building next door. It planned to make its headquarters in the second tower and let the rest as speculative office space.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1904

    Fifty caissons reach 85 feet down for the Trinity Building's foundations

    The foundations used pneumatic caissons, a method Kimball and George Kramer Thompson had introduced in the Manhattan Life Building. Fifty were sunk 85 feet below the Broadway curb, which Real Estate Record and Guide predicted would be the deepest in New York. To protect the consecrated churchyard beside the site, workers and materials moved on cantilevered scaffolds around the structure.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1905

    Kimball chooses Gothic so the tower will sit comfortably beside Trinity Church

    Kimball's choice of Gothic for the 21-story Trinity Building was shaped by its site beside Trinity Church and its churchyard. Critics praised how it echoed the church's style and how the ornament and arcaded lower windows were scaled to suit the church. The New York Times called it a monument, not merely an office building.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 1907

    A 27-foot addition rises after the city moves Thames Street north

    To give both towers full-block sites, the city agreed to move Thames Street about 28 feet north, on condition that it be widened to 30 feet. The land freed up allowed a 27.5-foot addition along the north side, finished in 1907. Together the Trinity and U.S. Realty Buildings cost about $15 million with land and were built at record speed.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Further reading

Nearby

All 276 buildings with stories in Financial District