The Wallace Building

56 Pine Street | also 26 Cedar Street | Financial District | built 1894

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1894
Developer James Wallace builds his namesake office tower
Developer James G. Wallace hired his in-house Swiss-born architect Oswald Wirz to design a 12-story Romanesque building faced in pinkish brick, terra cotta and dark polished granite. Wirz filled the facade with carved sea serpents and faces amid the round arches, and Wallace's own company took offices alongside the leased space.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1913
March
Montgomery Ward opens a New York branch in the building
The Chicago mail-order retailer Montgomery Ward & Co. opened its New York branch office in the Wallace Building, joining a roster of tenants that included insurance firms and lawyers.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
1919
Three more stories rise in yellow brick, hidden from the street
Owner Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, which had bought the building in 1894, added three additional stories in yellow brick that rose above the original cornice, keeping them nearly invisible from the sidewalk below.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
2007
The former office tower is converted fully to residences
A decade after the building's 1997 landmark designation, developers completed a full conversion of the Wallace Building to residential use, adding a fitness center and a private club called TWO for its new apartment dwellers.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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