Astor Trust Building

501 5th Avenue | also 2 East 42nd Street, 8 East 42nd Street, 6 East 42nd Street | Midtown | built 1917

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.

1917
The Astor Trust Building opens at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street
Architect Montague Flagg designed the building for the Oceanic Investing Co. at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Astor Trust Company took a long-term lease on the banking floor, and in 1917, the year the building was completed, it merged with Bankers Trust. A contemporary yearbook described the design as a modernized Italian Renaissance type.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1921
October 1
Federal agents search Auto Ordnance Corporation's offices in the building
Federal investigators served a search warrant on the offices of the Auto Ordnance Corporation here on October 1, 1921. Earlier that week 495 police riot guns had been seized on the East Side and traced to the company. Its books showed other transactions, including a purchase of 50 machine guns.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1948
The 'pumpkin papers' spy case touches a lawyer's office here
Attorney Nathan L. Levine had a law office in the building for years. In 1948 he told the House Committee on Un-American Activities that he had hidden microfilm for ten years for his uncle Whittaker Chambers, a former courier for a Communist espionage group, before handing it to the government. The microfilm became known as the pumpkin papers.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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