Cities Service Building
70 Pine Street | also 181 Pearl Street, 66 Pine Street | Financial District | built 1932
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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1929
Doherty's company assembles 23 low-rise lots for the future tower
Starting in 1929, Henry Doherty's Pine Street Realty Company bought and leased 23 lots to assemble a site for the tower. Every parcel held a masonry building of three to five stories with low property values, so the old buildings were cheap and easy to remove. The finished site covered 32,000 square feet, with 247 feet on Pine Street, 247 on Cedar Street and 116 on Pearl Street, and cost an estimated $2 million, far less than most comparable downtown sites. These earlier buildings made way for the tower.
“All of the 23 lots contained three-to-five story structures, masonry buildings that had low property values and could be easily demolished.”
- 1930
Doherty pays for his tower with $15.7 million in shares sold to individual investors
Instead of taking out a mortgage, Henry L. Doherty & Co. financed the Cities Service Building by selling more than $15.7 million in interest-free shares to individual investors. The company later described the scheme as financially unique among large New York office buildings. Plans for the $7 million tower reached the Department of Buildings in May 1930, months after the stock market crash, and Doherty called it the first of a series he meant to put up on four acres of downtown sites. None of the others was ever built.
“…selling more than $15.7 million in shares to individual investors... only Cities Service was built…”
- 1930
A cafeteria operator's lease holds up demolition, and he later collects $5,000 from Doherty
Nik Coutroulas ran a cafeteria, and a Lindy's franchise, in one of the buildings Doherty needed to clear for the tower. He held a lease, and Doherty's company could not strike a deal with him before the work began. Once his building had been demolished, Coutroulas sued for damages and eventually received $5,000 in compensation. The holdout was one of the complications that came with assembling the site.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1931
Crew of 600 raises 24,000 tons of steel, then crowns the tower with its stainless steel spire
About 600 men worked on the steel frame of the Cities Service Building. The Landmarks Preservation Commission reports that the job logged 119,000 man-hours on 24,000 tons of steel without a fatal injury or a lost-time accident. The tapered stainless steel spire, which rises from the top of the observation gallery, was installed in October 1931, a few months before the tower opened.
“About 600 men were involved... 24,000 tons of steel and 119,000 man hours... spire... was installed during October 1931.”
- 1932
A skybridge and tunnel tie the tower to 60 Wall Street, lending it a Wall Street address
To link the new tower with Doherty's older headquarters at 60 Wall Street, builders dug a tunnel and strung an enclosed pedestrian bridge across at the 16th floor. Finished by February 1932, the mid-air connection did two jobs: it gave the company's two buildings direct access to each other and let the Pine Street tower claim the more prestigious Wall Street address. Advertisements promoted the new building as Sixty Wall Tower.
- 1932
Otis installs the first double-deck elevators in the United States
To keep the narrow tower profitable, the architects used eight Otis double-deck elevators, each a pair of stacked cabs that let riders board or leave at two floors at once. During rush hours the upper cabs stopped at even-numbered floors and the lower cabs at odd ones. The Landmarks Preservation Commission says this was the first use of the system in the United States, and that the fewer shafts saved construction costs and freed about 40,000 square feet for rent. The elevators ran until 1972.
“…each of the units contained a pair of stacked compartments, allowing passengers to enter or exit from two floors simultaneously…”
- 1932
Six pairs of reversible escalators carry clerks through the lower floors
The big lower floors, home to Cities Service's clerical staff, were joined by six pairs of reversible escalators that the Landmarks Preservation Commission counts among the earliest installed in an office building. Made by Otis, they reportedly moved 6,000 passengers an hour, and the lowest six stories could be evacuated within ten minutes. Like the double-deck elevators, they cut the number of elevator shafts needed.
- 1932
Boxer and trainer Artie McGovern moves his athletic club to the seventh floor
One of the early tenants was McGovern's, run by former boxer and trainer Artie McGovern, whose clients included Babe Ruth and well-known businessmen. Moving from East 42nd Street, he filled 25,000 square feet on the seventh floor with a gymnasium facing Pearl Street, six courts for handball and squash, and space for table tennis and golf practice. About 1,000 men reportedly visited each day, and advertisements called it the world's largest private gymnasium.
- 1932
Elevator operators are an all-female staff, many of them redheads recruited from unemployed showgirls
Over 200 people worked for the building itself under manager Edgar J. Smith when it opened. Among them was an all-female staff of elevator operators, most of them redheads hired largely from the ranks of out-of-work showgirls.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1932
Cities Service dedicates its new Art Deco tower
Cities Service Company dedicated its new headquarters at 70 Pine Street on May 13, 1932, the 62nd birthday of founder Henry Doherty. The ceremony included a luncheon for 200 businessmen, the dedication of a bronze bust of Doherty, and a radio announcement he made from the spire. The tower was financed by a public stock offering instead of a mortgage, and it had become Lower Manhattan's tallest building and the third-tallest in the world.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1932
The top-floor penthouse opens as a public observation deck
The three-story penthouse designed for Henry Doherty's private apartment instead opened to the public in July 1932 as an observation deck, with an open-air platform and a glass solarium on the 66th floor. Admission cost 50 cents, discounted for tenants. Until the World Trade Center opened in 1973, it was the highest public observation deck in Lower Manhattan.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1936
The mortgage-free tower reports $500,000 in income despite the Depression
The Cities Service Building opened into the Depression and was described in 1933 as about two-thirds rented. Because it had no mortgage, the company still made money quickly, reporting income of $500,000 in 1936. It took almost a decade, however, for the building to reach 90 percent occupancy.
“Though almost a decade would pass before a 90% occupancy rate was reached, because there was no mortgage Cities Service quickly earned a profit…”
- 1941
Radio station WGYN opens its studios and transmitter in the tower
When the radio station WGYN was founded in December 1941, it put both its studios and its transmitter inside the tower, and it kept broadcasting from there until May 1950. The same year, 1941, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York took space in the tower.
“The radio station WGYN also established its studios and transmitter at 70 Pine Street when it was founded in December 1941…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1946
Photographer Weegee shoots the tower's tenants and staff
In 1946 the photographer Weegee made many pictures of the people and services inside the building. Author Daniel Abramson writes that Weegee was drawn to the tower as a "city within a city," with its fast elevators, its height and basement depth, its thousands of tenants and visitors, and a service staff that worked day and night without calling attention to itself.
“…the photographer Weegee, who, in 1946, took many photographs of the building's tenants and services…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1957
Merrill Lynch signs a 25-year lease on ten floors as Cities Service downsizes
After the Second World War, Cities Service cut the number of staff it kept in New York and began renting its lower floors to outside tenants. The most prominent was the investment firm Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Beane, which in 1957 signed a lease for ten floors running 25 years.
- 1973
Cities Service, now CITGO, announces it will move its executives to Tulsa
In 1973 the company, which had begun marketing gasoline as CITGO in 1965, said it would move its executive offices to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where six of its operating divisions were based. About 250 employees were involved in the move.
“…in 1973 it announced plans to move the executive offices to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where six of the company's operating divisions were based.”
- 1976
AIG buys the tower and renames it after itself
After Cities Service, by then known as Citgo, moved its headquarters to Tulsa in 1975, the American International Group bought 70 Pine Street for $15 million in 1976 and renamed it the American International Building. AIG occupied the lowest 26 floors and kept its world headquarters there until 2009, when it agreed to sell the tower after the 2008 financial crisis.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2009
AIG agrees to sell its headquarters at about $100 a square foot
In June 2009 AIG's brokers announced that a contract had been signed to sell 70 Pine Street and 72 Wall Street to the small developer Youngwoo & Associates, backed by Korea's Kumho Investment Bank. The two buildings total 1.4 million square feet, and the price of about $100 a square foot, roughly $140 million, would have drawn laughter a year earlier. The venture was said to have no plans to tear down the Art Deco tower.
Source: observer.com
- 2011
The city landmarks the exterior and lobby
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 70 Pine Street's exterior and first-floor interior as city landmarks on June 21, 2011. At the time, The New York Times called the tower's tiered glass lantern and stainless steel spire an icon of the Lower Manhattan skyline. The building had been completed nearly eighty years earlier.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2015
The Art Deco lobby reopens to visitors as apartments go up for lease
In 2015 Rose Associates began leasing converted luxury apartments in the tower, and the lobby, closed to the public since the 1970s according to Hyperallergic, was open for anyone to walk through. The old storefronts became a leasing gallery and offices, while six elevator shafts were converted to mailrooms.
Source: hyperallergic.com
- 2019
Crown Shy opens in the landmarked base with a 120-seat dining room
The chef James Kent, formerly of Eleven Madison Park and NoMad, and his partner Jeff Katz opened Crown Shy at the foot of the tower on March 18, 2019. Designed by MN Design to honor the Art Deco building, the 120-seat restaurant has exposed steel columns, a 30-foot granite bar and an open kitchen reached along 16-foot windows. Eater reported that a second restaurant at the top of the tower was planned for later that year.
Source: ny.eater.com
- 2021
Saga restaurant opens atop the former observation deck
Restaurateurs James Kent and Jeff Katz opened the fine-dining restaurant Saga in August 2021 across the top four floors of 70 Pine Street, which include the level of the old observation deck. Their more casual restaurant Crown Shy had already opened on the ground floor in 2019. Both arrived as the tower's offices were converted into apartments and hospitality spaces.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- 70 Pine StreetWikipedia
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