America adopted the bald eagle as the emblem of the United States of America in 1782. The eagle symbolized strength, beauty, long life, flight, and freedom, characterized by its lofty flight and mountain top nesting. It not surprising then, with these idolized attributes, that the eagle would become an oft-seen decorative feature in architecture and memorial sculpture. In New York, a city that prides itself on its role as a powerful, resilient, and endlessly innovative center of financial, political and cultural life, the eagle has been incorporated into the built environment. Architects, designers, and sculptors have decorated their banks, civic buildings, statues of war heroes, skyscrapers, and airports (of course) with the noble birds. To see them, you usually just need to look up.

Located at 54 Canal Street, this 12 story classical-style bank was built by architects Rouse & Goldstone for Sender Jarmulowsky in 1912. Jarmulowsky established his banking business on the Lower East Side in 1873 and was operating at this location by 1878. Here, recent immigrants could set up bank accounts, send remittances, and buy steerage tickets for their European relatives – in Yiddish. The bank quickly became a household name among Jews on both sides of the ocean. According to legend, Jarmulowsky added the capital to the top of the building (now removed) so that it would be the tallest in the neighborhood. His original plan had not included this detail, but the Forward Building down the street on East Broadway went up simultaneously and was slightly taller than his bank prompting the architectural change. The bank become a testament to Jarmulowsky’s success as a businessman and reflected his prominence in the Jewish community of the Lower East Side. Jarmulowsky died in 1912 shortly after the bank was completed, and his sons took over the business. unfortunately, they lacked their father’s business acumen and mismanaged the business. In 1914, at the start of World War I, the bank closed as many depositors made “runs” on the bank to get money to help their families in Europe. According to the New York Times, 2,000 people demonstrated in front of the bank. 500 people stormed the house where son Meyer Jarmulowsky lived, forcing him to escape across tenement rooftops. Jarmulowsky’s sons were indicted for banking fraud and the bank closed. The State of New York took over the bank in May 1917 and auctioned it off. In 2009, Jarmulowsky’s Bank building was designated a landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The building is currently (2015) being restored and the temple at the top will be rebuilt.

“Looking south on Orchard Street at the Sender Jarmulowsky Bank Building, 54-58 Canal Street.” The Jarmulowsky Bank Building was built by architects Rouse & Goldstone in 1912, in Beaux-Arts style. The bank failed after the United States entered World War I as immigrant depositors withtheir money to send to relatives abroad, and the bank became insolvent. Until 1990, the building featured a massive columned tower rising 50 feet to a dome ringed by eagles, allegedly added at Jarmulowsky’s behest in order to make sure his building was the neighborhood's tallest.

S. Jarmulowsky Bank Building ARCHITECT: Rouse & Goldstone DATE: 1911-12 STYLE: Modern Renaissance The S. Jarmulowsky Bank Building was described at the time of its construction as “the first strictly high-class tall bank and office building” on the Lower East Side. It was completed in 1912 as the architectural showpiece of Sender Jarmulowsky, one of the Lower East Side’s most prominent bankers. Jarmulowsky achieved wealth and fame on the Lower East Side by providing steamship tickets and banking services to the immigrants of the neighborhood, which was then unrivaled as the world’s largest Jewish community. It was executed in the “Modern Renaissance style” and the tripartite configuration that was standard for tall buildings of the time.

New York, the city of great heights. Let's admire some buildings that were at one time the tallest!

Over a 130 years ago, New York’s Lower East Side was home to the world’s largest Jewish community. Between 1881-1924 over 2 million Eastern European Jews called this neighborhood home. And just as generations of immigrants have and continue to do, this community transformed the LES, creating a network of businesses, synagogues, public gathering spaces and more. Today, the LES has gone through many changes, but look closely. Tucked along these bustling blocks, signs of immigrant Jewish life – and hopes – still remain.

Founded by Sender Jarmulowsky, the Jarmulowsky Bank provided vital services to the immigrants of the LES and today serves as a marker of the neighborhood's heritage.

Abraham Cahan, leader, publisher, and writer, was the founding editor of the Forward, America's oldest independent Jewish news organization. Born in 1860, to an Orthodox family in Podberzhie a small shtetl near Vilna (Vilnius) Lithuania, in what is today Belarus, the unorthodox, socialist Cahan had been a revolutionary in his youth. He identified with the narodny (folks) movement that opposed the Czar and briefly believed in a kind of agricultural socialism. Escaping the Czar’s secret police along with his fellow communards of the Am Olam, movement, Cahan arrived in the U.S. in 1882 with the idea of creating agricultural communes here.