New York County National Bank

77 8th Avenue | also 300 West 14th Street, 79 8th Avenue | West Village | built 1907

Open on the map4 entries

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

  1. 1906

    A planned eight-story bank and loft building shrinks to a one-story bank, with a Brooklyn architect joining

    In February 1906 the Real Estate Record and Guide announced that De Lemos & Cordes would design an eight-story building with the bank on its first two floors. By April the filing was for a one-story-and-attic building, signed by the firm and Rudolph L. Daus as successor. The record does not make clear who designed what.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1907

    A carved eagle crowns the new bank, its head lowered from the original drawings

    The finished bank has a monumental eagle with broad wings in the pediment above its Eighth Avenue entrance. The early drawings showed the bird with its head raised, but the builders changed it so the neck swoops downward, which gives people walking up to the bank a closer encounter with the creature. Carved books and a ledger decorate the entrance arch.

    “In the original drawings, the eagle's head was raised, but the design was changed; as executed, the pedestrian approaching the bank has more direct interaction with the noble creature.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1921

    The bank merges with Chatham and Phenix, beginning a chain of mergers that ends at Manufacturers Hanover

    The New York County National Bank merged with the Chatham and Phenix National Bank in 1921. Three years later that institution joined the Metropolitan Trust Company to form the Chatham-Phenix National Bank and Trust Company, which Manufacturers Trust Company acquired in 1932. Manufacturers Trust later became Manufacturers Hanover Trust, which kept using the building as a branch.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1999

    The empty bank becomes Nickel, a men's spa, with apartments added above

    After Manufacturers Hanover merged with Chemical Bank in 1994, the monumental building sat empty and was briefly used as a theater. In 1999 Hudson River Studios' Lee Harris and John Reimnitz turned the space into Nickel, a men's spa that Philippe Dumont created, and drew up a residential addition to hold apartments.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

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All 1,156 buildings with stories in West Village