Liberty Tower
53 Liberty Street | also 55 Liberty Street, 45 Nassau Street, 1 Liberty Place | Financial District | built 1910
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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.
- 1853
The New York Evening Post buys the corner that later becomes Liberty Tower's site
Liberty Tower stands on the site of the New York Evening Post's old building, a corner that was not yet part of the financial district. The paper, edited by the poet William Cullen Bryant from 1827 to 1877, bought the property in 1853 and stayed until 1875. After several changes of ownership, the seven-story building on the site, like the company that owned it, carried Bryant's name.
“The Post, edited by poet Willian Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) from 1827-1877, bought the property in 1853, and remained on the site until 1875.”
- 1909
St. Louis investors buy the Bryant site and promise offices only for finance and law
In January 1909 the Bryant Building Company sold the site to St. Louis's C.L. Gray Construction Company, which was acting for a company not yet incorporated. That company became the Liberty-Nassau Building Company, which built the tower as a speculative office building. Its brochure said it meant to rent only to stockbrokers, banks and other financial institutions, big industrial corporations and lawyers.
“…the company intended to limit tenants to stock brokers, financial institutions, large industrial corporations and lawyers…”
- 1910
Henry Ives Cobb's Liberty Tower opens above Liberty Street
Commissioned by a group of St. Louis investors, the 33-story neo-Gothic tower was assembled from two smaller lots and rests on pneumatic caissons sunk 95 feet to bedrock. Architect Henry Ives Cobb clad the steel frame in white terra cotta and topped it with a copper roof. The $2.5 million building was, for its footprint, one of the tallest and slenderest office towers in the city.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1911
A receiver takes over the new tower and a $1.6 million loan staves off foreclosure
Almost as soon as the tower was finished, it was placed in the hands of a receiver, and by March 1911 foreclosure was close. A $1.6 million loan delayed the inevitable. The Liberty-Nassau Building Company had spared no expense on the building, and its debts at that point exceeded $8 million.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1915
German agents use an office in the tower for a wartime spy ring
During World War I, German agent Franz von Rintelen worked with financier Andrew D. Meloy out of an office in the building, plotting to keep American arms and ammunition from reaching the Allies by helping finance a planned Mexican revolution. The scheme collapsed when von Rintelen was arrested in London and imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1916
A foreclosure sale hands the tower to the Garden City Company, and a bookshop opens in the lobby
The Liberty-Nassau Building Company at last lost the tower in September 1916, when a foreclosure sale sold it to the Garden City Company for $1.8 million. Tenants stayed regardless, and soon afterward Doubleday, Page & Co. opened a bookshop in the lobby. The Sun reported that it staffed the shop with people who knew books and mounted a special display of war books.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1919
Sinclair Oil buys the tower and plots the Teapot Dome deals inside it
Harry Sinclair's Sinclair Oil Corporation purchased the building outright for about $2.5 million and renamed it the Sinclair Oil Building. It was here that Sinclair worked out arrangements with the Harding administration over federal oil reserves that erupted into the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s. Sinclair Oil kept its headquarters in the tower until relocating to Rockefeller Center in 1935.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1921
Franklin D. Roosevelt works from an office in the tower
Years before his presidency, Franklin D. Roosevelt served as vice president of Fidelity and Surety Insurance, which kept its New York headquarters in the building, while running as the Democratic candidate for U.S. vice president. He was guest of honor at a company dinner at Delmonico's in January 1921.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1979
Joseph Pell Lombardi turns the office tower into the district's first apartments
By 1978 the office tower was two-thirds vacant, and architect Joseph Pell Lombardi, a principal of the buying firm G.T. Properties, took ownership and began converting the offices into cooperative residences, completed in 1980. It was the Financial District's first office-to-residential conversion, and the building now holds 86 co-op apartments.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1982
The Landmarks Commission designates Liberty Tower after a hearing with no opposition
The Landmarks Preservation Commission held its hearing on Liberty Tower on May 19, 1981; three witnesses spoke for designation and nobody against. The commission designated it a landmark on August 24, 1982. Its report counted the tower among the early romantic skyscrapers and noted that it stands nearly free of neighbors, wears mostly terra cotta and borrows from Gothic design.
“Three witnesses spoke in favor of designation. There were no speakers in opposition to designation.”
- 2001
The World Trade Center's collapse damages Liberty Tower on September 11
The collapse of the World Trade Center, about 660 feet to the west, damaged Liberty Tower on September 11, 2001. A 2003 engineering report found that water leaks had rusted the interior steel, and the expanding steel widened existing cracks. Insurance paid $450,000, but another $4.6 million was needed for renovations, roughly $54,000 for each of the 86 apartments.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2009
A $10 million restoration repairs 202 sculptures and thousands of terra-cotta blocks
A restoration of Liberty Tower ran from 2007 to 2009 and cost $10 million. Workers fixed or replaced 202 sculptures and 3,200 terra-cotta blocks on the facade, and gave another 1,040 blocks minor repairs. In 2007 the tower was also made a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Liberty Tower (Manhattan)Wikipedia
- The 1910 Liberty Tower Buildling -- No. 55 Liberty St.Daytonian in Manhattan
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