ISAPD presents an Urban Archive tour featuring select Indigenous place names in New York, making visible the ongoing connection between historical territories and Indigenous placemaking. ISAPD guides viewers through a series of built and unbuilt projects involving Indigenous communities, including the unbuilt early-twentieth-century American Indian Memorial at Fort Wadsworth. ISAPD members' studio projects propose a new approach to Fort Wadsworth as a national park, while another project in Inwood incorporates themes of Indigeneity, ecology, technology, and urban public interaction.

Downtown's first exemplar of the International Style contrasts dramatically with the sturdy brick and stone of its neighbors. Its 1960s architecture is stripped of historical references and ornament, and its grid of glass and aluminum mirror sunlight down to street level. The sixty stories are carried on twenty columns that, at great expense, were expressed on the exterior as long verticals, faced in white anodized aluminum. At the base, the columns are stilt-like supports for the double-height entry lobby, enclosed in broad expanses of clear glass. As innovative as the architecture of the tower is the plaza in which it sits. The Chase Manhattan Bank headquarters, called "1 CMP," Lever House, and the Seagram Building, created a new paradigm. These towers occupied only a portion of their building plot (in the case of Chase, thirty percent); the rest was a "public" plaza, maintained by the owners. This "tower-in-the-plaza" was encouraged in the 1961 Zoning Law, which allowed developers to trade a bonus of two square feet of extra floor space for every square foot of plaza. One Chase Manhattan Plaza occupies a full-block site for which the street pattern was changed. The tower and plaza rest on a plinth elevated above the street. Below plaza level is the flagship branch of Chase Manhattan Bank. This sleek modern room is lit with natural light from a glass-enclosed sunken garden cut out of the plaza above. The garden, by Isamu Noguchi, synthesizes elements of the traditional Japanese Rock Garden with a 1960's corporate aesthetic. Jean Dubuffet created the large sculpture, Group of Four Trees, in 1972.

20 Nassau Street, 1913. Stretching the entire block of Nassau Street between Pine and Cedar Street, this was the location of the Fourth National Bank. The six-story Second Empire Style building was suffering from intense structural problems when the Germania Life Insurance Company, who originally owned the structure, sold it to Fourth National. Most of the problems of the building came from its sinking foundation, which caused cracks and misalignments to appear in the facade's stones and windowsills. Many of the building's openings had to be braced by heavy timber. In some parts of the building, the ceiling sloped three or four inches and doors had to be trimmed down to be function at all. Despite the structure's impending doom, Fourth National purchased the building for 1.5 million dollars. This was "the highest figure yet paid in the financial district," at the time, at around three hundred dollars a square foot. The New York Tribune noted that the lot had ample light, and "unusual advantages," due to the building's squat neighbors. Though the building was purchased in 1909, the Germania Life Insurance Company didn't move out until two years later. In 1914, Fourth National merged with the Mechanics and Metals Bank and continued to occupy the building, despite concerns over structural problems. The Mechanics and Metals Bank was consolidated with Chase National Bank in 1926, who would ultimately call for the demolition of the building. However, razing a structurally-deficient building proved to be harder than anticipated. The safety vault of the bank was a "miniature fort in the heart of New York's financial district", according to a Connecticut newspaper, because it was encased in thirty inches of masonry and five inches of steel plates to withstand any bombing or burglary. Removing it required the effort of "fifteen men, consisting of drillers, blasters, burners, rock-men, and engineers...employed continuously trying to batter \[it] down." Once the ground was finally leveled, Chase National Bank had plans for a tower almost 500 feet in height, with stepped levels resemblant of a pyramid.

If 1 CM Plaza typifies gossamer modernity, its neighbor represents the weighty historicism in vogue in the days before the Stock Market Crash of 1929. York & Sawyer turned to the fortified palaces of the Renaissance bankers of Florence for inspiration for this design. The fortress-like character is appropriate, as the Federal Reserve houses the world's largest concentration of gold bullion in its basement vaults. The elaborately wrought iron lamps flanking the main doorway on Liberty Street are the work of Samuel Yellin, the most noted artist of wrought iron of the twentieth century.

Group of Four Trees.

Not all New York City landmarks are made of stone or steel or glass. Here is a list of some of the city's famous topiary, both long gone and still standing. Much like buildings, these trees 🌳 🌳 dominated streetscapes, provided community gathering places, and witnessed history.

A walking tours through Lower Manhattan's skyscraper canyons and more than a century of high-rise construction. This walk focuses on the buildings around Broadway. This story is adapted from an exhibition at the Skycraper Museum. The original version can be seen here.

Starting in the late 1960s, groups such as the Public Art Fund and New York City's Public Arts Council funded works of public art all around New York. These sculptures were sometimes celebrated, and sometimes ill-received, often prompting both civil discussion and lively debate.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at 33 Liberty Street, was designated a New York City Landmark on December 21, 1965. "This enormous building occupies an entire city block; it is fourteen stories high and has five stories below grade. The remarkable stone exterior is reminiscent of an early Italian Renaissance palace with the horizontal and vertical joints of the stones deeply grooved (rusticated). The wrought iron window grilles and lanterns represent some of the finest craftsmanship of this Century. The importance of the Federal Reserve Building lies in its vast size, fortress-like appearance, fine proportions and in the superb quality of its construction. It set a precedent for many later banks which were influenced by its design." On April 10, 1918, the New York Federal Board of Directors gave the Real Estate Committee the go-ahead to negotiate for the Maiden Lane/Liberty Street/Nassau Street block. The committee acquired a total of 45,750 square feet at the total cost of $4,797,881.72. Inside the cornerstone, sealed in a copper container, is a time capsule holding documents including a roster of current employees, the New York Times and Herald from the morning, the 1921 Annual Report of the Bank, several Federal Reserve notes and a 1922 Peace Dollar. Completed in 1924, the New York Fed's main building at 33 Liberty Street in New York City is the largest bank structure in the world, filling almost the entire block bounded by Maiden Lane, Nassau, Liberty and William Streets. The building is composed of rusticated limestone and sandstone ashlar with deeply inset bronze windows and doors. The auditing and accounting departments moved to the eighth floor of the new building on May 29, 1924, beginning a process that would take several months with the last of the 2,500 employees settled in the new quarters by the end of October. The Fed's $3 billion in cash and securities was transferred from the Equitable Building to the recently opened main building on September 21st, 1924. After months of planning, the move was carried out on a quiet Sunday morning taking nearly 100 trips with a fleet of 37 armored cars, 150 NYPD officers, 50 detectives, 15 bomb squad members, 60 Secret Service agents & 40 Federal Reserve guards armed with Thompson automatic rifles. In September 1933, the New York Fed was finally able to purchase a small building on the east side of the 33 Liberty Street block (known as the Montauk Building) for $356,250. This was less than their original bid over a decade before. It now holds ownership of the complete block. The timing was propitious. Its trucking enclosure was taxed to capacity and the space the extension provided permitted trucks to drive in one way and out the other. On January 17th, 1936, the William Street Addition (on the site of the former Montauk Building) was completed. The addition took two years and cost $800,000.

Queen Insurance Company Building (right) at William and Cedar Streets, March 26, 1936. The Mutual Life Insurance Co., Chase National Bank and Equitable buildings are visible in the background, along Cedar Street. The Queen building, a steel-frame structure completed in 1897, was part of the “superblock” razed in the mid-1950s ahead of the construction of One Chase Manhattan Plaza.