Staten Island Savings Bank Building
81 Water Street | Stapleton | built 1925
Open on the map4 entries
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.
- 1892
The savings bank moves into the old Edgewater Village Hall on this corner
The Staten Island Savings Bank, the island's first bank to last, began in a rented office at Bay and Broad Streets and then moved across the street to the Tynan Building at Dock and Bay. By October 1892 its business had grown enough that it took a building of its own, the former Edgewater Village Hall at Water and Beach Streets, using its ground floor. The present bank later replaced those offices on this same site.
- 1925
The new Staten Island Savings Bank opens its doors in Stapleton
The trustees unveiled the Delano & Aldrich design in December 1922, when business stood at three times its level of ten years before and assets had reached $1,913,383.47, mostly lent out as local mortgages. The cornerstone went down in 1924, and the new bank began serving customers on January 7, 1925. The bank had been incorporated in 1864 but did not open until 1867, when Mary Josephine Thiery made its first deposit of $100.
“The corner stone was laid in 1924 and the new building opened for business on January 7, 1925.”
- 1925
Delano & Aldrich turn an awkward acute corner into a domed, columned entrance
Built in 1924-25 at the sharp-angled corner of Water and Beach Streets, the neo-Classical bank is one of only a few buildings credited to Chester Aldrich of Delano & Aldrich. The architects set a colonnaded portico with a fish-scale dome of cast lead into the point of the lot. Rusticated limestone and tall arched windows between Tuscan pilasters mark the public banking hall, while plainer ashlar limestone wraps the offices.
- 1925
Bees, an owl and dolphins carry the bank's message of thrift and its seafaring setting
Above the entrance gate a shield shows a beehive and two bees, standing for industry, economy and thrift, with an owl for wisdom perched on top. Nods to Stapleton's harbor run through the exterior: the fish-scale dome, a compass rose laid in the portico floor, dolphin sconces holding lanterns with their tails, and carved scallop shells and knotted rope. The trade journal Architecture and Building gave the new bank an extensive write-up in its February 1925 issue.
“…a hive and two bees representing industry, economy, and thrift; the owl that stands atop the shield represents wisdom.”
Nearby
- Edgewater Village Hall111 Canal Street | 3 entries
- 390 Van Duzer Street House390 Van Duzer Street | 3 entries
- Boardman–Mitchell House710 Bay Street | 3 entries
- 364 Van Duzer Street House364 Van Duzer Street | 3 entries
- 92 Harrison Street House92 Harrison Street | 4 entries
- Mary and David Burgher House63 William Street | 4 entries