Central Savings Bank Building (Apple Bank)
2112 Broadway | also 202 West 74th Street, 201 West 73rd Street, 2114 Broadway | Upper West Side | built 1928
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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1923
The Central Savings Bank buys the five-story Sherman Apartments for $1 million to build an uptown branch
The southern part of the block held the five-story Sherman Apartments, which James Butler and Peter McDonnell had bought in 1905. In November 1923 the Central Savings Bank bought them for $1 million, planning a branch on the Upper West Side. It then paused buying because tenants on the rest of the block had leases running to 1926, and in March 1924 it leased a temporary branch at 77th Street and Broadway.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1928
Fifteen craftsmen get gold buttons for building the Central Savings Bank before it opens
On March 6, 1928, with the bank still under construction, the New York Building Congress gave certificates and gold buttons to fifteen workers. The honorees included a stone carver, Patrick Clune, and an ornamental iron and bronze worker, George Forspad, among the craftsmen, and electrician Charles Kennedy and cement mason Anthony Kowalseki among the laborers.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1928
Sixteen trucks and machine-gun guards move $170 million in securities uptown to the new bank
Before the new branch could open, the Central Savings Bank had to carry its assets up from 14th Street. A guarded motorcade of sixteen trucks made 38 trips with over $170 million in bonds, mortgages and stocks, about $5 million per trip, timed two minutes apart. Guards with machine guns covered both ends, and the transfer was described as the biggest movement of private money ever through the city's streets. It went smoothly, and the funds went into vaults with 60-ton doors.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1928
York & Sawyer fit a Renaissance palace to a trapezoidal Broadway block, with Samuel Yellin's ironwork
The bank was built in 1926-28 as a grand Italian Renaissance palace on a trapezoidal block. Its rusticated limestone walls rise to tall arched windows lighting the banking room, and a clock flanked by two lions sits above the 73rd Street entrance. Samuel Yellin's Philadelphia studio made all the exterior wrought iron, including grilles ending in gargoyle heads, and Benjamin Moscowitz of York & Sawyer was in charge of the drawings.
“All the wrought ironwork on the exterior was executed by the studio of Samuel Yellin of Philadelphia, a well-known master craftsman in that medium.”
- 1931
A vice-squad officer's large deposits at the Central Savings Bank end his police career
After Vivian Gordon, who said Officer Andrew McLaughlin had framed her on a morals charge, was found strangled in 1931 days before she was to testify, investigators examined his bank records. McLaughlin, who earned $3,000 a year, had put $35,800.51 into his Central Savings Bank account in about two years. At his March 13 inquiry he refused to answer questions and was dismissed from the force.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1954
Frank Costello's tax trial reveals a 'Charities Fund' account at the Central Savings Bank
When gangster Frank Costello was tried in 1954 on charges of cheating the government out of roughly $74,000 in income taxes, his accounts were examined. Records showed that from 1947 to 1949 he had put $30,350 into a 'Frank Costello Charities Fund' account at the Central Savings Bank. The New York Times described the unexpected finding as a 'Robin Hood aspect' of his operations.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1975
The bank fights landmark designation through four hearings, then accepts it
The Landmarks Preservation Commission held five hearings in 1974 on designating the Central Savings Bank, with eighteen witnesses in favor. The bank's representative opposed designation at the first four hearings but said at the last that it would go along. The Commission designated the building on January 28, 1975.
“Although the representative of the Central Savings Bank spoke in opposition to designation at the first four hearings, he stated that the Bank would accede to the designation…”
- 1983
Unplugging the bank's old name sign blacks out the corner's time-and-temperature display
A time-and-temperature sign had topped the bank at 73rd Street and Broadway since 1961. In August 1983 it went dark after the Harlem Savings Bank's old name sign was unplugged ahead of the switch to the Apple Bank for Savings, because both signs shared one electrical hookup. Neighbors on the West Side complained of feeling late until a new sign was put up.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1989
Artists auction work at the bank to fight Trump City
On December 6, 1989 the group People for Westpride held an auction at the Apple Bank for Savings at 73rd Street and Broadway to raise money against Trump City. At least 37 donated works were offered, including pieces by Chuck Close, Rackstraw Downes, Milton Avery and Komar & Melamid, with $50 tickets. The development, announced in 1986, would have put 7,600 apartments and a 152-story tower on the 76-acre site along the Hudson.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1993
The city designates the banking hall an interior landmark
After hearings on July 10 and September 11, 1990, at which six witnesses spoke in favor and three against, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the bank's interior on December 21, 1993. The protected spaces include the entrance vestibules and foyer, the main banking hall, two staircases and the mezzanine loggia. The report calls the interior remarkably intact and credits York & Sawyer with fusing Roman monumentality, Baroque drama and High Renaissance models.
- 2007
The upper floors become 29 condos, and Harry Belafonte buys two of them
After the bank let its office tenants' leases lapse in 2004, the upper floors were converted into 29 condominiums with their own entrance at 2112 Broadway. Sales began in July 2006 at $1.8 million to $6.7 million, and duplexes at the top went on sale in 2007. Singer Harry Belafonte took two adjacent units that year, and the Apple Bank branch kept operating on the ground floor.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Apple Bank BuildingWikipedia
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