One Financial Square
32 Old Slip | also 42 South Street, 1 Financial Square, 77 Front Street | Financial District | built 1987
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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.
- 1932
The U.S. Assay Office is completed here, later the nation's last public gold refinery
Before One Financial Square, this site held the United States Assay Office, a five-story granite-faced building designed by James A. Wetmore. Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon chose the site in November 1929, and it held 15 older buildings, some nearly a century old. The Assay Office was completed in 1932 for $3.5 million, refining gold and destroying damaged coins and paper money, and by the 1980s it was the last public gold refinery in the country.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1982
The Assay Office's vault, once full of Nazi-confiscated gold coins, is emptied
On the site of today's One Financial Square, the Assay Office vault was emptied in 1982 after having held 4,140 bags of gold coins taken from the Nazis in World War II, thousands of pounds of silver and more than 100,000 gold bars. The gold went late that year to a repository in West Point, N.Y. The office was known for tight security: workers' clothes were washed on the premises, waste water was filtered for gold dust, and the smokestack yielded about $200,000 in gold each year. It had 185 employees when it closed.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1983
HRO International wins the Assay Office auction with a $27,010,000 bid
Fifteen bidders, each posting a $100,000 bond, gathered at 26 Federal Plaza to bid on the five-story granite Assay Office. The auctioneer found the $3 million opening bid laughable, the price shot to $20 million, then rose slowly, often by just $1,000. HRO International won with $27,010,000, ahead of a $26 million bid from Irwin Stillman, and it was the highest price ever paid at a government real-estate auction; the previous record was $3 million, for a Philadelphia arsenal.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1986
HRO tops off Financial Square after two years of assembling air rights and a new firehouse
By October 1986 HRO had topped off its 36-story tower. To build it large enough, chairman Howard Ronson spent two years assembling 135,000 square feet of air rights from three properties: the First Precinct station house, the southern end of Front Street and an old firehouse. The deal included a commitment to house a new firehouse in the tower, four times the size of the old one. Eight floors were designed with 12-foot ceilings and extra electrical capacity for trading operations, and Thomson McKinnon was to take most of the lower portion.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1987
One Financial Square opens on the former Assay Office site
Developer Howard Ronson's HRO International won the Assay Office at auction in 1983 with a $27 million bid and built the 36-story One Financial Square, designed by Edward Durell Stone Associates in a postmodern style. A granite and glass base steps back and tapers to an octagonal glass top. The ground floor holds a firehouse for FDNY Engine Company 4 and Ladder Company 15, four times the size of the old one it replaced.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1995
Paramount Group buys the half-empty tower for $135 million and woos tenants with toy helicopters
Demand for downtown space fell after Black Monday in 1987, and One Financial Square was half empty by 1993. Howard Ronson defaulted on the mortgage in 1995, and the Paramount Group bought the building that year for $135 million, with a $96 million loan from Sanwa, the Japanese bank that had financed it. A Paramount executive said the deal closed within 45 days of learning the building was for sale. To attract tenants, Paramount mailed toy helicopters with its party invitations.
“To attract tenants, Paramount hosted a party for which it sent out toy helicopters along with its invitations.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1999
The Thomas Crown Affair shows One Financial Square inside and out
The 1999 film The Thomas Crown Affair used both the interior and the exterior of One Financial Square. Years earlier Gary Pollard's 1990 short film Going Up had followed the tower's construction and aired in the third season of the PBS series POV. The building, designed by Edward Durell Stone Associates in a postmodern style, thus appears on screen twice.
“Both the interior and exterior of the building were depicted in the 1999 film The Thomas Crown Affair.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2007
Beacon Capital Partners closes on One Financial Square for $751 million
The Paramount Group sold the 36-story tower to Beacon Capital Partners in 2007, twelve years after buying it for $135 million. City records showed the deal went into contract on July 2 and closed on August 29. That May, Paramount had paid $1.18 billion for 60 Wall Street.
Source: Internet Archive
- 2012
Hurricane Sandy batters the tower, prompting new flood defenses
Like much of Lower Manhattan, 32 Old Slip was battered by storm water during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, though its earthquake-resistant design helped it avoid worse flooding. A renovation that began in 2013 added flood barriers, pumps, and piping to guard against future storms. RXR Realty agreed to buy the building from owner Beacon Capital Partners in 2014.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 32 Old SlipWikipedia
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