People's Trust Company Building
181 Montague Street | also 142 Pierrepont Street | Brooklyn Heights | built 1906
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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.
- 1904
The People's Trust Company hires a scrap dealer to clear 181-183 Montague Street for its new bank
The People's Trust Company's president, Felix Campbell, had bought the two lots at 181 and 183 Montague Street in May 1901. After the architects Mowbray & Uffinger submitted plans in mid-May 1904, the Thomas Krekeler Company, a scrap-materials dealer, was hired by the next month to demolish the buildings already standing on the lots.
“Scrap-materials dealer Thomas Krekeler Co. was hired by the next month to demolish the existing buildings at 181–183 Montague Street for the People's Trust Company.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1906
The People's Trust Company opens its Montague Street bank, its columns hauled by fourteen horses each
The bank was finished in March 1906, after 16 years at 172 Montague Street. The portico columns were so heavy that workers built a special derrick to set them, and the bank used a team of fourteen horses to drag each column to the site. When the building went up, few columns in the New York area were larger.
“The bank employed a team of fourteen horses to pull each of the building's columns to the construction site.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1906
City employees crowd the People's Trust basement on the first of each month to cash their checks
When the bank opened, many of its depositors worked for the city, and a banking room in the basement was set aside for municipal employees to cash checks. They did so on the first of every month, and the bank grew crowded. The vaults, reached through a circular door seven feet across that weighed 14 tons, held about 1,400 boxes between them.
“…these employees cashed their checks on the first of every month, causing the bank to become crowded.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1906
Mowbray & Uffinger give the bank a marble temple front with four 27-foot columns
Louis Mowbray and Justin Uffinger designed the neoclassical front in white Dover marble above a base of pink granite from Milford, Massachusetts. Four fluted columns, each 27 feet tall, carry a pediment whose sculpture shows a man holding a mallet and a woman holding a purse. A cornerstone behind one column carries the bank's name and the year 1904.
“The pediment itself contains a cartouche with reclining sculpted figures on either side; one depicts a man with a mallet, while the other depicts a woman with a purse.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1909
The People's Trust Company becomes Brooklyn's largest trust company
By 1909 the bank had $18 million in deposits, $1 million in capital and a surplus of $1.6 million, which made it the largest trust company in the borough. It had three branch locations. By 1922 it had eight branches, and the building at 181 Montague Street remained its headquarters.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1926
National City Bank of New York takes over the People's Trust Company and makes the building its Brooklyn headquarters
National City Bank of New York acquired the People's Trust Company in March 1926, when the Brooklyn bank had 11 branches and $76 million in assets. The merger was finalized in June, and 181 Montague Street became a National City branch serving as its Brooklyn headquarters. The next-door building at 185 Montague Street housed the securities arm, the National City Company.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1929
National City Bank adds a six-story annex on Pierrepont Street and doubles the floor area
The branch could no longer handle all of National City's Brooklyn business, so in early 1929 the bank said it would build an annex behind the original building, on Pierrepont Street. The bank moved to 151 Montague Street in February; Walker & Gillette filed plans the next month, and excavation was under way by April. The work cost about $600,000 and doubled the bank's floor space, and the annex received its certificate of occupancy in April 1930.
“The work cost about $600,000 in total and doubled the floor area of the bank.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2015
Developer Jonathan Rose buys 181 Montague Street for $36.5 million, raising fears of demolition
Citibank put the building up for sale in 2012, and Prudential Financial and Madison Capital bought it that year for $18.3 million. In March 2015 the developer Jonathan Rose bought it for $36.5 million. Because Rose had just torn down a neighboring building for condominiums, and the buyer was an LLC called Montague Pierrepont Apartments, the sale prompted concern that the bank might be demolished or heavily altered.
“The developer Jonathan Rose acquired 181 Montague Street for $36.5 million in March 2015.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2017
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the People's Trust Company Building but leaves out the 1929 annex
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the bank a city landmark on January 24, 2017. Its report explains that the Walker & Gillette annex of 1929 was left out of the landmark site because it was built after the People's Trust Company had been acquired and ceased operating, departs in style from the original building and sits off-axis. The annex also reproduces a corporate bank design used elsewhere for National City Bank.
Further reading
- 181 Montague StreetWikipedia
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