The Greenwich Savings Bank Building, also known as the Haier Building and 1356 Broadway, is an office building at 1352–1362 Broadway in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Constructed as the headquarters of the Greenwich Savings Bank from 1922 to 1924, it occupies a trapezoidal parcel bounded by 36th Street to the south, Sixth Avenue to the east, and Broadway to the west. The Greenwich Savings Bank Building was designed in the Classical Revival style by York and Sawyer.
The exterior, wrapping around the three sides of the building, consists of a base of rusticated stone blocks, atop which are Corinthian-style colonnades. Structurally, the building consists of a steel frame. Inside is an elliptical banking room with limestone Corinthian columns, granite walls, a marble floor, and a coffered, domed ceiling with a large skylight. The bronze tellers’ screens contain sculptures of Minerva (symbolizing wisdom) and Mercury (representing commerce).
The Greenwich Savings Bank Building opened in May 1924 and operated as the headquarters of that bank until 1981. Afterward, the building was occupied by other banks for two decades. The building was purchased by Chinese appliance company Haier in 2001 and soon afterward was renamed for Haier. The banking space was turned into an event space called Gotham Hall, while Haier occupied the basement through 2014. The building’s facade and lobby were made New York City designated landmarks in 1992, and the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
The Greenwich Savings Bank Building is on the northern sidewalk of 36th Street, running the entire block between Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) to the east and Broadway to the west, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building’s land lot covers 17,600 square feet (1,640 m²). The building has a frontage of about 106 feet (32 m) on Broadway, 159 feet (48 m) on 36th Street, and 99 feet (30 m) on Sixth Avenue. Because Broadway runs diagonally to the Manhattan street grid, the land lot is trapezoidal, with the western facade on Broadway running at an irregular angle. Prior to the construction of the Greenwich Savings Bank Building, the two-story Sheridan Building occupied the site. The land was owned by the Van Ingen estate immediately before the bank had purchased it in 1921. The neighborhood had become dense after World War I with the construction of hotels and stores, as well as the development of what is now the Garment District of Manhattan. The site to the south once contained the New York Herald Building, the Renaissance Revival-style headquarters of the New York Herald. Because the Herald Building had a loading dock from 36th Street, the bank’s design does not include any entrances from 36th Street to alleviate congestion there.
At the building’s opening, The Wall Street Journal dubbed it “a wonderful piece of architectural work”. Architect magazine wrote, “it seems worth while to express appreciation of all those concerned in the construction of the bank and in the furnishing of all its varied details”.
[responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The International Crisis Group (ICG; also simply known as the Crisis Group) is a transnational non-profit, non-governmental organization founded in 1995 that carries out field research on violent conflict and advances...
