Bowery Bank of New York Building
124 Bowery | also 230 Grand Street | Little Italy | built 1902
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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.
- 1834
The Butchers and Drovers Bank builds a granite bank at 124 Bowery
An earlier building stood on this corner. The Butchers and Drovers Bank was founded in 1830 by members of the cattle trade, and in 1834 it put up what a later writer called a "dignified old-fashioned granite bank and office" at 124 Bowery. That same year it lent a two-story house nearby, at 128 Bowery, to the newly established Bowery Savings Bank.
- 1900
York & Sawyer file plans for the Bowery Bank of New York's new building
York & Sawyer filed plans for a 24-by-100-foot marble and granite fireproof bank in October 1900. After the bank bought the neighboring building at 126 Bowery in June 1901, the Bowery frontage doubled to about 50 feet. Marc Eidlitz & Son was the general contractor, and the Buildings Department recorded the work as finished in August 1902.
- 1902
The Bowery Bank of New York opens its marble banking house
The $500,000 building opened in April 1902, and bank officials claimed it was the finest banking building in the United States. The banking hall had Norwegian marble walls and a ceiling painted by Elmer Garnsey, and four floors of offices above were leased to architects, builders and insurance agents. In the 1910s tenants included the Federation of American Zionists, which published the Maccabean magazine.
- 1925
Giannini's Bancaitaly Corporation buys the Bowery Bank, which later joins National City Bank
In 1925 Amadeo Giannini, founder of the Bank of America, and his Bancaitaly Corporation bought the Bowery Bank of New York, then described as one of the smaller state-chartered banks with more than $6 million in assets. It merged into the East River National Bank, a Bancaitaly subsidiary. In November 1931 the office became a branch of the National City Bank of New York.
- 2012
The Landmarks Commission designates the former Bowery Bank building
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Bowery Bank of New York Building an individual landmark on June 26, 2012, after four people testified in favor on May 15 and the owner wrote in opposition. The building was sold in 1992 and its lowest floors became retail space with enlarged first-story windows, but much of the classical detail survives, especially around the upper cornices and windows.
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