Bankers’ Row

New York City is a banking capital and several streets were known as “bankers’ row” (or “bankers row”).
 
   
New York (NY) Times
Commercial Property/Midtown Manhattan; Town Houses Used by Foreign Banks Are for Sale
By JOHN HOLUSHA
Published: Sunday, December 9, 2001
(...)
Also on the market is a 10,500-square-foot building at 124 East 55th Street on what was once known as ‘‘bankers row’’ between Lexington and Park Avenues, Ms. Berk said. The building, a Tudor-style structure with original fireplaces, was owned for many years by the Bank of Chile.
 
The Crime Spree
Sunday, July 24, 2005
The pleasures of false crime
(...)
(I live about two blocks from Montague Street’s bankers row, so my mind is in overdrive right now).
   
Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle
From Independence to Sovereign
by Brooklyn Eagle (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)), published online 09-25-2006
Signaling a change on historic “Bankers’ Row” in Downtown Brooklyn, workmen install a sign for Sovereign Bank at the former headquarters branch of Independence Community Bank at 195 Montague St. Sovereign acquired Independence and its branches last year.
 
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
July 24, 2007
TWO TURN-OF-THE-20TH CENTURY FRENCH RENAISSANCE REVIVAL
MANSIONS IN MIDTOWN MANHATTAN EARN LANDMARK DESIGNATION
Elegant Residences on West 56th Street Owned by Prominent New York-Based Financiers and Designed by Two Famed Architectural Firms
The Landmarks Preservation Commission today unanimously voted to grant landmark status to the former Edey and Seligman mansions along West 56th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues in Manhattan. Both designations arose from Commission’s recent survey—the largest undertaken since the early 1990s—of more than 16,000 historic buildings in all five boroughs, including 562 in Midtown.
 
Aside from their location, the refined residences at 10 and 30 W. 56th Street share a number of similarities, such as mansard roofs, limestone facades, date of completion, design and prominent owners and architects. They were two of several townhourses constructed at the start of the 20th century for financiers on that block, which became known as “Bankers Row.”
   
In a Manhattan Minute
Bankers’ Row
by: Michael Kent | 3/24/2009
Although “Bankers’ Row” might sound these days like a description of some hostile hearings in Washington, it is the description of a cluster of five townhouses on the uniquely lower-scale block of West 56th Street built more than a century ago for bankers. Three of those buildings already have landmark designation, and a fourth, the E. Hayward Ferry Residence at 26 West 56th Street, built in 1871, was the subject of a public hearing at the Landmarks Preservation Commission on March 24.  Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer testified that both the E. Hayward Ferry House and another building on the block, the Edith Andrews Logan Residence, merit landmark designation.
 
The E. Hayward Ferry Residence, at 26 West 56th Street, was designed by famed architects D. and J. Jardine in 1871, and in the early 20th century, then-owner Henry Seligman hired architect Harry Allen Jacobs to design a new façade for the building. Jacobs’ improvements included a new limestone façade and a unique copper dormered mansard roof. The building’s rusticated base and fourth floor, and its limestone middle floors – with historic tripartite windows, pilasters, modillion cornice and limestone balustrade – contribute to its architectural distinctiveness. E. Hayward Ferry acquired the building in December 1908, and the building remained in the Ferry family until 1945.
 
The Edith Andrews Logan Residence, at 17 West 56th Street, was originally constructed as a row house in 1870 and remodeled in the early 20th century in the Georgian Revival style. The proposed landmark’s architecturally significant features remain largely intact. Architect-builder John G. Prague, whose work is present, and protected, throughout both the Upper West Side and Upper East Side historic districts, designed the building as a three-story, single-family row house in 1870. In the early 20th century, then-owner Edith Andrews Logan hired architect Augustus N. Allen to redesign the building. His improvements – which heightened the building’s architectural merit – include centering the main entry in the rusticated ground story, fluted columns, iron balconnettes, incised limestone band courses and splayed keystone lintels, a dentilled cornice, and pediment dormers.