The Lost German Savings Bank -- 14th Street & 4th Ave

The German Savings Bank dominated the eastern corner around the turn of the century -- photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWNKOHZB&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

In the 1840s German immigrants began pouring into Manhattan, settling mostly on the Lower East Side.  Within the next decade 800,000 Germans entered New York Harbor and by 1855 only Vienna and Berlin had a larger German population than did New York City.  Along with the impoverished working class Germans were highly successful businessmen including Jacob Windmuller.

Another influential and wealthy German, Oswald Ottendorfer, would later describe Windmuller as an able businessman and note his “wise beneficence” and “refining and powerful influence he had exerted in the advancement of music and art.”  But in 1858 Jacob Windmuller was more focused on opening a savings bank for the German population.  With a group of associates of the German Society he established the German Savings Bank and submitted the proposed charter to the State legislature that year.  The first attempt failed; but the group was successful in incorporating on April 9, 1859.

The new bank opened for business on July 1 in the Cooper Institute building.  Initial deposits were overwhelming—reportedly about $100,000 or around $2.7 million today.  On January 10, 1862 the Directors of the German Savings Bank heard a promising report from the bank’s President, William Jellinghaus.

He told the members “I had expected that the last month would have increased our deposits, for such is usually the case just before the opening of the months of June and January; but I did not expect that the increase would be so great, nor that the receipts would be $5,000 more, and the money paid out $2,000 less, than in December, 1860.”

He added, “The number of depositors also has increased in a surprising manner.  In December, for instance, 280 new bank-books were made out, and the total of our depositors at the end of that month reached 7,742.”  As 1861 came to a close, the bank listed assets of $909,098.

The German Savings Bank’s success should not have been surprising.  The Germans were the largest group of immigrants arriving in New York and a great many of them would never learn English.  At the German Savings Bank they could transact their business in their native language, without fear of miscommunication or of being duped.

In 1864 the growing bank acquired land on the southeast corner of 14^th Street and Fourth Avenue facing Union Square.  The bank was among the first commercial intruders on the upscale residential neighborhood.  Before the end of the decade it was obvious that the bank needed an even larger, more substantial building.  Additional, adjoining land was acquired and the trustees contracted German-born architect Henry Fernbach to design its new headquarters.  Fernbach reportedly worked with Edward Henry Kendall in designing the structure, construction of which was begun in 1870.  It would be two years before the bank building was completed.

 

An early stereoscope view shows gas street lamps.  Houses, some converted for business, still fill the neighborhood -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

Five stories tall, its regimented façade featured the arched openings, separating pilasters and cornices at each level made popular by the French Second Empire style currently all the rage.  Ferbach used the corner plot to visual advantage, placing the entrance on a chamfered point and crowning it with a faceted dome.  Architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler pointed to the building as an example as to why Fernbach “is one of the most accomplished practitioners in this country of academic Renaissance.”  A year after the building’s completion Fernbach would design a near-clone in Philadelphia with his New York Mutual Insurance Company building. 

Among the workers in the bank in 1871 was 16-year old Adolph Koppel.  Koppel was an immigrant who was hired as to run errands.  Over half a century later, Koppel would still be employed here.

Although there was ample use of marble, the banking room was relatively no-nonsense -- photogrpah by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWNKOHZB&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The tenant list on the upper floors was widely varied.  Among the first leasers was artist and glassmaker David Maitland Armstrong who established his studio here.  In 1875 sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens returned to New York and shared the space with Armstrong.  According to historian Mosette Broderick in his Trimvirate: McKim, Mead & White, Saint-Gaudens missed the flowing fountains of Rome and would leave water running in the sink for soothing background noise as he worked.

The bank was innocently drawn into two scandals in 1887.  John Gloeckler was to be married to Hattie Dilger on Monday night, October 3.  That morning he left his sweetheart, saying he was on the way to the German Savings Bank to withdraw $600 “and buy furniture with it for their housekeeping,” as reported by The Sun three days later.  Hattie said “The last thing he said to me when he left the house was: ‘Now I am going to get the fruit and the flowers for the wedding supper.  Don’t you worry about it.’”

Gloeckler had told Hattie that he was a collector for a publishing house—although he never divulged its name—and that he had a tidy $1,000 in the bank.  The Sun doubted his story, saying “probably he had no such employment.  Since he left John Ganther’s saloon, in the Sea Beach Railroad depot, a month ago, he had frequented other saloons a good deal, and really did not seem to be doing anything.”  And in fact, the bank treasurer, G. F. Amthor, revealed that the largest amount Gloeckler ever had in the bank was $65 and that he had withdrawn the last $15 of that on September 27. 

The would-be groom never returned for the wedding.  The following morning his body was found on the beach at Bath, Long Island.  There were no marks of violence on the body and the County Physician reported “that Gloeckler’s death resulted from drowning and from nothing else.”  The Sun was convinced it had the answers.  “It is now thought, therefore, that Gloeckler, without money and unable to get any, drowned himself rather than go home and face his betrothed penniless.”

Hattie Dilger would not believe it.  “He couldn’t tell me a lie.  I know he couldn’t…Oh! They drugged him and took him to Bath and got his money and murdered him!”

Another German woman was duped two years earlier.  Mrs. Matilda Stern was wooed by Josef Schrurrer for only a few weeks before he convinced her to marry him.  He told the widow that he was a Hungarian banker and was in America to establish a branch of his bank.  But now that he met Matilda, “love prolonged his stay—or at least he told her so,” reported The Sun on December 3, 1887.

“She believed all he said, and gave him $5,000 to deposit in the German Savings Bank in his own name.  Some of this was drawn out for household expenses, but there were $,460 to his credit on Jan. 30, 1886, when he bade his wife good morning at their flat…and said he thought his arrangements for a branch banking house would be completed that day.”

Like John Gloeckler, Josef Schrurrer did not return home that night.  The following morning Matilda realized her watch and jewelry were missing.  Suspecting the worst, she headed to the German Savings Bank where she was told all the money had been withdrawn.  The headstrong Matilda was not about to be conned out of her jewelry and money.  She rushed to attorney Benjamin Hoffman who checked the passenger lists of vessels that left on January 30.  “It was found that Schrurrer, or a man answering his description, had sailed under another name on La Gascogne for Havre,” said The Sun.

French detectives were notified by telegram and Matilda boarded the next steamer to France.  Joined by a detective, she traced Schrurrer to Hungary.  “Although he had shaved off his beard and put on a pair of spectacles, she knew him.  He had joined his Hungarian wife and three children.”

The irate Matilda had him promptly arrested for bigamy, retrieved her watch and jewelry and about $4,000 of the stolen money.  Now in December 1887 she stood before Judge Barrett to have her marriage annulled.

Normally, other than false reports on runs on the bank in 1875 and again in 1878, things on the 14^th Street and Fourth Avenue corner were less dramatic.  In 1906 The Russ Metal Lath Company moved into Rooms 216 through 218.  Architect Maximillian Zipkes had his offices in the building in 1909 and artist H. P. King’s studio was here at the same time.  Film manufacturer the Solax Co. was here in 1911 and 1912 as was Henry Metcalfe, a retired army officer, who ran his real estate business from the building.

War broke out in Europe on July 28, 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.  The weekly publication The Fatherland reported in 1915 on the various New York City banks’ use of deposits.  Readers were concerned that their money would be lost in investments in war loans.  The magazine, which targeted German American readers, assured “The German Savings Bank in Fourteenth Street has announced, however, that none of its funds are being used in the war loans.”

The war would soon have a major effect on the German Savings Bank.  Following the United States’ entry into the war in 1917, anti-German sentiment ran high.  Businesses and institutions thought it best to remove any implied affiliation with the enemy from their names.  By the end of the year the Germania Life Insurance Company on the opposite end of Union Square had changed its name to the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.  The German Savings Bank would be close behind.

On June 4, 1918 The New York Times reported “The German Savings Bank of 100 East Fourteenth Street announced yesterday that it had been decided to change the name of the institution to ‘The Central Savings Bank in the City of New York.”  At the time the highly-successful bank had assets of over $102 million.

Around World War I the intersection bustles with activity.  Motorized vehicles replace horses and ornate subway kiosks have sprouted on both sides of 14th Street -- photograah by Byron Company. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWNKOHZB&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The bank weathered the storm of war and things returned to normal.  In October 1925 Adolph Koppel, the 16-year old immigrant boy who had been hired as an errand boy in 1871 got a promotion.  Reporting on what was a real-life Horatio Alger story, on October 20 The New York Times said that Koppel “was elected President of the Central Savings Bank…by the Board of Trustees yesterday.”  The newspaper noted “He has been cashier, Treasurer, Second Vice President and First Vice President of the bank.”

Sadly, Koppel’s health began failing only six months later.  In April 1926 he was no longer able to make it to the bank offices and on August 3 the 71-year old banker died.

The following year the executive offices of the Central Savings Bank left the building they had called home for 55 years.  A new building engulfing the entire block between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, 73^rd to 74^thStreets was constructed.  The venerable Victorian bank building on 14^th Street continued as a branch office.

In the early 1940s the upper floors housed the headquarters of the New York County Committee of the Communist Party.  In March 1944 the FBI gained access to Committee documents—possibly through a government-sanctioned burglary—that aided it in its battle against KGB spies.

Henry Fernbach’s wonderful Victorian pile survived on the fringe of Union Square until 1962.  It was demolished to be replaced by a red brick apartment building with the architectural charisma of a cinder block.

photograph taken by the author

The Lost Equitable Building -- Broadway and Pine St.

In 1899 artist C. Graham captured the Equitable Building in a charming watercolor -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWDOBV0B&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=2#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWDOBV0B&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=3

Sixteen-year old Henry Baldwin Hyde arrived in New York City in 1850 from Boston.  His father, Henry H. Hyde was, according to The New York Times, “one of the most conspicuous and successful life assurance men of his day.”  Young Henry Hyde began working for the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York in 1852 and seven years later the ambitious and audacious 25-year old announced to Frederick S. Winston, President of the firm, that he had decided to form his own life assurance company “organized along new lines.”

In March he resigned and on July 26, 1859 the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States was incorporated.  Hyde was described at the time as “tall in statue and strong of limb.  Handsome in feature and singularly bright in expression.  His mouth was peculiarly expressive, but his eyes, which were dark and gleamed from beneath heavy eyebrows, arrested instant attention.  They were keen, alert, and it is scarcely a figure of speech to say that they pierced like a sword.  The young man impressed his individuality upon the world around him, and the charm to persuade men, which is the precursor of the power to direct them, already asserted itself in his daily walk and conversation.”

On the Equitable Society’s first day of business on July 28 fourteen policies were written totaling $100,500.  Despite the outbreak of the Civil War—or partly because of it—the Equitable prospered.  The offices were enlarged several times and on December 16, 1865 the Board of Directors discussed the construction of its own building.  “That Mr. Hyde should have been willing to advise this step at a time when the assets amounted to only $1,500,000 and the income to only $971,000 illustrates the confidence with which he looked forward to the future growth and prosperity of the society,” said The Times.

The plot of land at the southwest corner of Broadway and Cedar Street was purchased in the fall of 1867.  The first architectural competition for a New York structure was held but, as reported in the Real Estate and Builders’ Record, “A number of architects and the board was unable to decide between the plans of Guilman & Kendall and those submitted by George B. Post, then a young man.”

George B. Post had just emerged as an architect and a compromise was formulated.  The older firm would be responsible for the  building’s design while Post was put in charge of the ironwork, vaults and elevators.

Post’s would be a daunting task.  The I-beam had recently been perfected by Peter Cooper and at the time there were only five other buildings in Manhattan that contained ironwork—Cooper Union, the Herald Building, the Times Building, the Ball & Black store on Broadway and the American Exchange Bank.  A more formidable challenge for Hyde and Post, however, was convincing the Board to install new-fangled elevators.  No building in New York City had passenger elevators.

“Approval of this revolutionary innovation was not easy to obtain,” said the Real Estate Record.  “A prominent real estate firm was asked to appraise the rents in such a building, and when their report was read to the directors Mr. Post, who was present, offered to take the topmost Broadway suite at the appraised rental.  ‘No,’ declared Mr. Hyde, ‘you will take the suite at twice that figure,’ to which Mr. Post agreed.”

Post’s confidence won over the Board and the Real Estate Record and Guide noted that “they were the first commercial elevators used in America.”

In the meantime, Edward H. Kendall and his staff worked on the four-story design.  Completed in the fall of 1867 it was an explosion of French Second Empire grandeur.  The rusticated basement and main floor supported two stories of pilasters, cornices, and gently-arched openings.  The four floor, where Post’s offices would be, was an ornate mansard bursting with dormers and oculi, and crowned with ornate cast iron cresting.

The original building was completed in 1867 -- Booth's History of New York (copyright expired)

Inside the opulence continued.  While other high-end buildings boasted expensive woodwork of black walnut, mahogany or cherry; the Equitable Building was outfitted in imported rosewood.  Including the land, the cost of the completed structure was a jaw-dropping $1.5 million—about $23 million today.

Among the early tenants in the building was the Mercantile Loan and Warehouse Company which took space early in 1870.  In May that year The New York Times noted that their “elegant offices” were being fitted up.  “The safes, vaults and other appliances are expected to be ready for occupancy about the 15^th of June next.  They are being built on a scale which for extent, strength and security surpasses anything of a similar character in the world.”

Three years later the Equitable Building was no longer sufficient to house the firm and its growing list of would-be tenants.  Despite the Financial Panic of 1873 that crippled much of the nation, land was purchased on Broadway and in May 1874 construction began on an addition.

The original architectural firm was brought back.  Theodore Weston later testified “that he was architect of the Equitable building” although “preliminary plans were drawn by Mr. Kendall.”  Completed within the year, the $1 million addition melded seamlessly with the original structure.

The addition doubled the size of the original building.  sketch New York and its Institutions 1609-1873 (copyright expired)

The Daily Mail, on May 1, 1875, commented on the speed of the construction.  “The activity of the company in constructing a building of such size, entirely of stone, iron, and brick, within so brief a period is unprecedented in architecture, but is only the expression in a new department of that well-directed energy which has made the Equitable Life Insurance Company what it is.”

The newspaper counted among the new tenants “many of our richest corporations and leading lawyers” and said that all the higher floors were already rented as were most of the rooms below.  “This is a great success in these dull times when many large buildings are standing half empty.”

The Equitable continued its tradition of innovations with a common Law Library for the use of its attorney tenants.  The basement was occupied by the Safe Deposit Company, the first floor was taken by the German American Bank, and the Equitable Life Insurance Company had the entire second floor.

A high-profile tenant was the Weather Bureau whose local forecaster maintained an “office” on the roof.  There a signal station and lighthouse used flags and colored lights to warn ships of weather conditions like gales, blizzards and rainstorms.  Air temperatures would be forecast from atop the Equitable Building for decades.

Always in the forefront of innovation, the Equitable Building made news again in November 1880 when the Exchange reported that “The United States Electric Lighting Company have introduced their arc and incandescent lights in the offices and vaults of the Mercantile Safe Deposit Company, in the basement of the Equitable Building.  This is said to be the first practical use that has been made of the incandescent mode of lighting, and is particularly interesting on that account.”

The newspaper made note at the same time that the firm “has enlarged its premises, adding a reading-room containing the leading newspapers of the world, a smoking-room, and largely increased accommodations in the way of security boxes and rooms for the examination of securities.”

Such growth of the Equitable itself as well as its tenants would soon tax even the enlarged structure.  In July 1885, when The New York Times noted that the building was “draped with simplicity and good taste” mourning the death of General Grant; discussions to enlarge once again were already underway.

On March 27, 1886 the newspaper reported that “the Equitable Life Assurance Society has filed plans for a building supposed to be big enough to accommodate a small army of professional men.  This building will extend from the southern side of the present structure to Pine-street…When it is finished the Equitable Building will occupy the entire block on Broadway, between Liberty and Pine streets.”

To enlarge the building once again, the Equitable Life Assurance Society purchased and demolished the beloved Delmonico’s restaurant and the Metropolitan Bank.  By summer construction had begun and soon the first of several tragedies occurred.

On August 7 around 11:00 in the morning a huge block of granite was being hoisted to the third floor by a large derrick. “John Dallas, a Scotchman, and brother of Foreman Dallas, stood on the block to steady it.  The big derrick creaked and the stout rope stretched as the mass of stone rose in the air,” reported The New York Times.

As the rope scraped the building's metal ornamentation it frayed.  “The stone was swaying when the strands separated,” said The Times, “It crashed against the building, knocked a hole in it, and plunged downward with frightful velocity.”  John Dallas was still on the block as it fell.

The man hit the ground on his back.  He looked up at the foreman and said “Good-bye, brother—good-bye, wife,” and fell unconscious.  An hour later at Chambers Street Hospital he died.

Six months later another disaster would occur.  At 10:50 a.m. on January 15, 1887, a scaffolding inside the building on the third floor collapsed “with a crash that was heard and felt in remote parts of the great building” said The Times.  Three men were pulled from the debris heap—35-year old electrician Dan Ford; 25-year old construction worker John Callaghan; and plumber Alexander Phillips who was just 17 years old.

When the doctor arrived, Callaghan was bleeding heavily from a head wound.  Phillips, too, was injured in the head; but “not apparently to any dangerous extent.”  Dan Ford, however, was dead at the scene.

The electrician had apparently died immediately.  He was married, with no children and his body was taken to his home in the afternoon.  “Nobody at the building could be found who blamed anybody,” said The Times.

As the building neared completion in April the decorating firm of Herter Brothers installed the largest mosaic in America within the arched entrance on Broadway.  Designed by artist Francis Lathrop, the Greek-inspired grouping was composed of stone, marble and glass tiles.  The glass pieces were used for the faces and were back-painted.  The innovative materials prompted a critic from The Times to say “Mr. Lathrop has hit the mean very well between the rudeness of the Roman pavement mosaics, together with those of later date preserved at Ravenna, and the modern demand for greater care in the drawing.”

The completed, block-engulfing structure was opened on May 1, 1887, deemed by The New York Times as “the finest and one of the largest commercial buildings in the world, as well as one of the most unique and complete.”

Seen from Trinity Churchyard, the arched main entrance was now on Broadway -- photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWDOBV0B&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=2

While the façade carried on the twenty-year old original design; the building now rose to eight stories—three of them disguised by the hulking mansard.  The main entrance was on Broadway through a large arch.  Inside a 22-foot wide corridor led to the central court, “a novel and striking feature of the building, as well as one which will prove of use to such as are fortunate enough to be tenants in the building,” opined The Times.

The 100 foot by 44 foot courtyard was encircled by highly polished, rose-colored marble pillars with capitals of white onyx.  The pillars upheld the arched ceiling of polished marble and “richly stained glass.”  The courtyard formed the base of a large interior air shaft that provided light and ventilation to the offices above.

The first floor contained shops and offices for the convenience of the tenants—a post office, newspaper store, stationery store, railroad and theater ticket agent, telegraph office, etc.   Off the courtyard were a restaurant and barbershop and baths.

Above the Equitable Life Assurance offices were floors of 60 to 80 rooms or suites for tenants.  As before, the legal profession was pursued and The Times noted “Not only will [the offices] be particularly desirable for an attorney’s office because of their interiors, finished in quartered oak, and their roomy book shelves and closets, but because the occupants will have the privilege of availing themselves of the Equitable Law Library.”  By now the library held over 7,000 volumes, as well as English and European court reports and digests, and all law periodicals “of consequence of this country and Europe.”  The Equitable Law Library was considered at the time to be the most complete and valuable in the country.

In January 1886 the building presented New Yorkers with yet another innovation.  The Café Savarin opened its doors--a French restaurant which was established by the Paris-based Societe Anonyme de Restaurants aux Etats Units.  Deemed by The Times as “unsurpassed in magnificence in any quarter of the globe,” it took up the full eight floors of the Pine Street side of the building and cost more than $1 million in furnishings.

Marble pillars, convenient tickertape machines, art glass chandeliers and a magnificent carved bar are features of the Savarin Cafe's barroom -- photograph by Byron Co. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWDOBV0B&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=2#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWDOBV0B&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=2

The main restaurant, café and serving room were on the ground floor.  The restaurant could accommodate 200 diners and was paneled in white mahogany under a “richly decorated ceiling.”  The second floor held the ladies’ dining room “to which gentlemen are not to be admitted unless accompanied by ladies,” warned The New York Times.  A full staff of “ladies’ maids” was on hand in black dresses, white caps and aprons “to tender to the comfort of lady patrons.”  Also on this floor were another café, grill room, and restaurant, all paneled in old oak; and a reception room, library and private rooms in white mahogany.

A portion of the Savarin wait staff poses on the restaurant's marble staircase -- photograph by Byron Co. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWDOBV0B&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=2#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWDOBV0B&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=2

The fifth and sixth floors were dedicated to the Lawyer’s Club—a private restaurant conceived of by Henry Hyde himself.  The seventh floor contained private dining rooms and the kitchen took up the top floor.  The wine cellar, in the basement, was supplied from the Café Voisin of Paris.  The glass and chinaware in the 8-story restaurant were valued at $50,000 and The Times assured “the silver and damask are in the most refined taste.”

1889 brought the Equitable Building into the national spotlight more than once.  On the morning of April 29 the new President, Benjamin Harrison, received his welcome to New York here.  The Times described the preparations for his arrival.

“Outside and inside bunting fluttered in artistic forms and boundless profusion.”  Soldiers from several different detachments lined the staircases on both sides of the hall.  “On the south staircase, velvet carpeted, the vested choir of Trinity Church, sixty voices strong, was grouped…Behind the military were massed crowds of ladies and gentlemen.  No coign of vantage was unoccupied.  Ladies stood on tables and clung to pillars at peril of their lives, bound to see a live president, no matter what might happen.”

Harrison was welcomed in the Lawyers Club taking elevators that were decked with roses, lilies, palms and ferns.  Then he was taken to the private dining room; but before the banquet began the Equitable Building would get to show off its novel and astonishing electric lights.

“Just before entering the hall the guests passed up a dark stairway, and its brilliant beauty suddenly burst upon them with all the added effect of striking contrast.  Gen. Harrison, who entered first arm in arm with Mr. Fish, uttered a cry of admiration, and the other guests also were enthusiastic.  Electric lights blazing from twenty chandeliers lighted up the room with dazzling brilliancy.”

On the tables, heaped with flowers, were more lights.  “Masses of the most exquisite roses covered all the table but the spaces for the plates and glasses. Among the roses were electric lights in pink globes.  In the very centre of the table was a spreading palm, from whose fronds orchids hung.  This, too, was hung with electric lights.  If ever there was a fairy scene it was this,” declared The Times.

The Lawyer’s Club and Savarin Café were the center of attention later that year when the entire Pan-American Conference stopped here for breakfast.

On March 31, 1890 a ground-breaking event took place in the Lawyers’ Club when the American Co-operative Building and Loan Association met.  General W. T. Sherman presided over the meeting of about 200 members during which a phonograph recording of William E. Gladstone was played.  Unable to attend the meeting, Gladstone had his message to the assembly recorded on wax.  “The words of the message were distinctly heard by all present,” said a newspaper.  It was the precursor of today’s teleconference.  Later, a member made a motion that “General Sherman be empowered to speak the thanks of the meeting into a phonograph for reproduction to Mr. Gladstone.”  The motion was approved.

After an illness of about a year, Henry Hyde died on May 2, 1899.  Two years later a bronze statue of Hyde was placed in the entrance hall of the Equitable Building.  Sculpted by John Quincy Adams Ward, its unveiling was a lavish affair and the large crowd that pushed into the building included Senator Chauncey M. Depew, E. H. Harriman, Henry Marquand, Jacob Schiff, John Jacob Astor, Levi P. Morton, August Belmont, Adolph S. Ochs, Cornelius Bliss and C. Ledyard Blair to name only a few.

On July 1, 1908 the Equitable Life Insurance Company announced its plans to build a 909-foot skyscraper to replace its old headquarters.  President Paul Morton gave a statement that said “the plans for the new building to be erected on the site of the present Equitable Building have been worked out by Daniel H. Burnham & Co. of Chicago…It seems to be the consensus of opinion of those in authority at the Equitable that the lot on which the present building stands it too valuable to be without a modern structure.”

Although the architects had drawn up the plans; nothing happened for the next four years.  Then on January 9, 1912 the unthinkable occurred.  A small fire began in the kitchen and storeroom of the Savarin Café.  William Davis, the chief engineer of the building, felt that his crew could contain the fire.  The delay in reporting the blaze had disastrous consequences.

The flames made their way into the elevator shaft and quickly rose upward.  By the time firemen arrived flames were bursting through windows.  In the bitterly cold January morning the water from the fire hoses froze as quickly as it hit the granite façade.  Within the hour six inches of ice covered engines and trucks, hydrants and the pavement, hampering the work of the firefighters.

Firemen pause before the ice-covered ruins of the once-grand structure -- photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWDOBV0B&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=2#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWDOBV0B&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=2

Three men working in the Savarin escaped onto the roof but fire ladders were too short to reach them.  As the heat and flames closed in, the men frantically lowered themselves over the roof’s edge.  Firemen rushed to the building next door and a “line-shooting gun” was used to fire a life line to the men.  As one of the men tried to secure the heavy cable rope to a steam funnel, a sheet of flame burst up from the floor below and burned the rope to ashes.

As the men clung on desperately, the roof collapsed and the flames and heat closed in.  “They were seen to jump together, not into the fire, but clear of the coping and down into ice-covered Cedar Street.”  The three Italian immigrants were dead on the frozen pavement when Father McGean, the Fire Chaplain found them.

In the meantime, William Giblin, President of the Mercantile Safe Deposit Company, heard of the blaze and rushed to the scene.  Despite objections by police, he barged into the Cedar Street entrance.  A watchman accompanied him.  The heavy steel door at the entrance to the vaults was fitted with a spring lock.  Giblin forgot to take his key out of the lock and when the two entered, the door swung closed and locked behind them.  For 15 minutes the two groped around in the darkness, finally finding and entering the big vault.  Outside a heavy safe crashed through the floor from above.  As the safe broke open through the ceiling, air rushed in and the entire floor was soon a mass of flames.  Giblin found the papers he was looking for and opened the vault to find himself surrounded by smoke and flames.  The watchman had disappeared and Giblin closed himself back in the vault, trapped.

“He knew then that his life, too, was only a matter of time, and he waited for that time,” said The New York Times the following day.

Fire Chief William J. Walsh heard that a well-dressed man and an aide had entered the building and initiated a search with a group of firemen.  Walsh was on a staircase when the floor overhead fell down on him.  When firefighters managed to bend the steel bars of the basement windows enough to admit a man, Father McGean insisted on going into the inferno.  In the rubble of the vaults they heard the plaintive cries of a man.  “For God’s sake, save me.”  It was Giblin.

In the end, nine men died in the catastrophic fire that destroyed the magnificent Equitable Building.  Below ground where Giblin had rushed in, $1 billion in securities were kept intact by the heavy vaults—making his foolhardy entrance into the burning building, which cost Chief Walsh his life, entirely pointless.

The granite walls still stand around a smoldering head of debris -- photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWDOBV0B&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=2#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWDOBV0B&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=2

Lost in the ice-covered, smoldering ruins were the magnificent mosaic mural of Francis Lathrop, the bronze statue of Hyde by Ward, the incomparable Law Library, and the exquisite interior decorations of stained glass, marble and rosewood.

When the heap of charred granite was trucked away, the soaring new 38-story Equitable Building already planned arose.  The 1915 engineering marvel survives today.

Chicago-based architect Daniel Burnham designed the new Equitable Building.  He was already responsible for a New York City landmark, the Fuller Building, better known as the Flatiron Building, completed in 1902.