40 Wall Street

40 Wall Street (also the Trump Building; formerly the Bank of Manhattan Trust Building and Manhattan Company Building) is a 927-foot-tall (283 m) neo-Gothic skyscraper on Wall Street between Nassau and William streets in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Erected in 1929–1930 as the headquarters of the Manhattan Company, the building was designed by H. Craig Severance with Yasuo Matsui and Shreve & Lamb. The building is a New York City designated landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP); it is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, an NRHP district. The building is on an L-shaped site. While the lower section has a facade of limestone, the upper stories incorporate a buff-colored brick facade and contain numerous setbacks. The facade also includes spandrels between the windows on each story, which are recessed behind the vertical piers on the facade. At the top of the building is a pyramid with a spire at its pinnacle. Inside, the lower floors contained the Manhattan Company's double-height banking room, a board room, a trading floor, and two basements with vaults. The remaining stories were rented to tenants; there were private clubs on several floors, as well as an observation deck on the 69th and 70th floors. Plans for 40 Wall Street were revealed in April 1929, with the Manhattan Company as the primary tenant, and the structure was opened on May 26, 1930. 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building competed for the distinction of world's tallest building at the time of both buildings' construction; the Chrysler Building ultimately won that title. 40 Wall Street initially had low tenancy rates due to the Great Depression and was not fully occupied until 1944. Ownership of the building and the land underneath it, as well as the leasehold on the building, has changed several times throughout its history. Since 1982, the building has been owned by two German companies. The leasehold was held by interests on behalf of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the mid-1980s. A company controlled by developer and later U.S. president Donald Trump bought the lease in 1995.