20 Exchange Place

Residential skyscraper in Manhattan, New York

The first recorded structure on the site was the house of Dutch ship's carpenter Tymen Jansen, built in the 17th century.

The City Bank–Farmers Trust Building was designed by Cross & Cross and constructed by the George A. Fuller Company. George Maguolo was the chief designer of the building, although the firm said its client, the City Bank Farmers Trust Company, "will always want a tie with the past". Observers characterized the building as having a "modern classic" style with minimal Art Deco ornamentation. The precise height of 20 Exchange Place is disputed. The author Daniel M. Abramson gives the largest figure for the building's height, citing 20 Exchange Place as being 760 feet (232 m) tall with 54 stories. Emporis and SkyscraperPage also cite the building as having an antenna reaching 748 feet (228 m). Christopher Gray of The New York Times described the building as being 59 stories high and 750 feet (229 m) in 2008. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission quotes New York City Department of Buildings records as saying that the building is only 685 feet (209 m) tall. There are three setbacks between the base and tower portions of 20 Exchange Place, including at the 19th and 21st floors. The tower portion, rising above the 21st floor, is octagonal in plan, with four chamfered corners between four longer sides. Only the William Street elevation of the base is parallel to the tower, creating the effect of an offset tower; a similar design was used at 19 Rector Street and 26 Broadway. Some of gray and blue tinted stone was quarried from Alabama and brought to New York in pieces weighing up to British sculptor David Evans was hired to design much of the lower stories' decoration.

The entrances are designed with nickel silver doors rather than bronze doors; There are also granite medallions flanking and above the arch, as well as the National City Bank's seal at the top left and the National City Company's seal at the top right. Two vertical illuminated signs, one on either side of the arch, contain the word "Twenty". Within this arch, there are steps leading to doors underneath a large grouping of windows, while a lamp hangs from a soffit at the top of the arch's ceiling. A fifth entrance is centered on the Hanover Street elevation, and is an arched opening with a carved surround. Similar to the entrance at Exchange Place and William Street, there are four paneled doors, as well as nickel silver panels above the doors, and a set of glass panes above the doors and panels separated by ornamental mullions. When the building opened, the Canadian Bank of Commerce used a banking space accessible from this entrance. The intake pipes for the building's heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system are concealed behind the spandrels, while the exhaust pipes are behind the giants of finance. A 2022 article in The New York Times characterized the giants of finance as being "Assyrian style busts". The building's foundation descends 65 feet (20 m) below the curb and includes four The two lowest basement floors were dug out of the bedrock, which extended 40 feet (12 m) below the depth of the groundwater. The superstructure uses of steel these are placed in the core of the building, allowing them to rise to the upper stories without interruption. The banking floors also had what was described as the world's largest pneumatic tube system to be used in a banking facility. located at the ninth floor. The high ceilings of the building's lower stories have been used as a filming location for several movies such as Inside Man and The Amazing Spider Man 2. The entrance from Exchange Place and William Street leads to a rotunda The floor of the rotunda contains various motifs representing the bank, while the walls contain stone pieces in various hues. The dome consists of stepped concentric rings with black and silver stenciling, with a plastic hemisphere at the apex of the dome. The senior officers' room was decorated with reliefs of the building and representations of agriculture, banking, and industry. The central hall contained oak paneling, leather seats, and wood carvings by Evans. These offices contained classical decor such as carpeting, lamps, curtains, chairs, and desks. According to Abramson, the president's office was intended to "combine dignity with warm friendliness". Another half flight of curved marble stairs, leading down from the rotunda, connected to the branch banking rooms, whose main entrance was at William and Beaver Streets. contains colored mosaic panels, There is also a private ground floor lobby with green marble decorations. The lower stories housed the Canadian Bank of Commerce and the City Bank Farmers Trust Company, which required separate entrances and rooms. There were five banking rooms used by the City Bank Farmers Trust Company. The security system could detect tiny vibrations in the steel and concrete. The basement also had a three man shooting gallery for the vault's guards to practice. Floor plans indicate that this space had cable and telegraph offices on the Exchange Place side and accountants' offices on the Beaver Street side. Telephone engineers considered the exchange to be the world's largest, The offices were connected by an extensive system of pneumatic tubes. Wires were concealed within the elevator shaft, beneath the floor surfaces, and within the baseboards of the walls. The upper floors were decorated with 15 types of wood. The top floors taper to Since being converted to residential use, 20 Exchange Place has contained 767 residential apartments. There are also several residential amenities such as a gym, lounge, and gaming room.

National City Bank and the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company were both longstanding New York City institutions, with the former being founded in 1812 and the latter in 1822. In subsequent years, other banks began moving to residential buildings on Wall Street and, by the 1820s, financial institutions made up the vast majority of tenants there. The Farmers Loan and Trust Company, meanwhile, occupied one of the buildings on 20 Exchange Place's site.

In February 1929, Cross & Cross filed plans for a 25 story building for National City Bank at 22 William Street, which would replace the bank's existing building there. The plans called for a structure with setbacks and chamfered corners, but no tower. National City Bank and the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company merged in April 1929. National City Bank took over the expanded bank's banking operations, while Farmers' Trust became the City Bank Farmers Trust Company, a subsidiary of National City Bank that took over the trust operations. The site was one of the few large lots near the New York Stock Exchange Building that was still available. 20 Exchange Place was originally among those contenders for that title. According to the Architectural Forum, the design process had to be "a coordinated solution to complex mechanical problems and the strenuous demands of economics", with aesthetic considerations as an afterthought. George J. Maguolo supervised a design team that sculpted clay models for the proposed skyscraper. In either case, the Empire State Building was already being planned at a height of 1000 feet (305 m) when 20 Exchange Place was announced. This building would have consisted of an tower rising above the 28th floor and tapering at the 50th floor, with a 15 feet (5 m) globe shaped lantern at the pinnacle supported by four eagles. The skyscraper, as initially planned, would have been the headquarters for a larger bank, to be created by merging the City Bank Farmers Trust and the Corn Exchange Bank. Consequently, the building was reduced to 64 stories, then to 54 stories. The Fuller Company, the building's contractor, employed an average of 2,000 workers simultaneously, with up to 3,000 workers on site at a time. A large proportion of the workforce, comprising over 600 workers, were hired for the stonework. The stonework was completed in November 1930. Some of the construction workers involved in the project were honored in a January 1931 ceremony. The bank had started moving into its quarters by February 20, 1931, On opening day, the building had 25,000 visitors; The New York Times stated that about 3,851 people per hour visited the building. which opened on May 1, 1931. In addition, 20 Exchange Place was the fourth tallest building in the world, behind the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and 40 Wall Street.

When the building opened, it had an estimated 6,500 employees. City Bank Farmers Trust occupied almost all of the space on the first through 12th floors, as well as the basement stories. The building also contained offices for financial firms such as Lehman Brothers, and First Boston. City Bank Farmers Trust remained the largest occupant of the building, occupying 75 percent of the floor area at its peak. National City Bank merged with the First National Bank in 1955, becoming First National City Bank. Shortly afterward, in March 1958, City Bank Farmers Trust took over the construction of a skyscraper on 399 Park Avenue, which was to contain most of the operations of First National City Bank. City Bank Farmers Trust moved to the newly completed 399 Park Avenue in 1961. The same year, 20 Exchange Place's eastern wing was undergoing renovations; in late 1961, some of these materials caught fire, leading 25 people to be trapped in the elevators. First National City Bank was renamed Citibank in 1976, and the bank sold off 20 Exchange Place in 1979, though it retained space there. Although the facade remained largely unchanged over the years, the lobbies had been closed to the public by the end of the 20th century. When DMJM Harris Arup took a sublease at 20 Exchange Place in early 2002, it became one of the largest office leases in Lower Manhattan since the September 11, 2001, attacks. By 2004, developers Yaron (Ronny) Bruckner and Nathan Berman had bought 20 Exchange Place. They proposed converting the building to nearly entirely residential use, with 250 condominiums in the tower and commercial space at the building's base. DTH Capital, a joint venture between the Bruckner family's Eastbridge Group and AG Real Estate, became the new developers of the building. Two years later, the joint venture received a $256.5 million construction loan from a group of several lenders; this loan was refinanced in 2009. These loans were used to convert some units to apartments. The first apartments were ready for occupancy by early 2008. Metro Loft Management, which oversaw the conversion,

Starting in November 2021, the building's elevators began to break down frequently, particularly eight elevators that served units above the 15th story. As a result, DTH Capital hired elevator mechanics to remain on site at all times and offered rent concessions and hotel rooms to 20 Exchange Place's residents. The New York Times reported that DTH had tried to acquire controller boards for the elevators, but the 2021–2022 global supply chain crisis had delayed the delivery of those boards. The elevator issues led some residents to report feeling trapped in the building, while others said they had to climb many flights of stairs to access their apartments. Conwell Coffee Hall opened within one of the banking rooms in 2024.

At the time of the building's completion, the Times characterized 20 Exchange Place as "magnificent", and other unnamed critics had called it "one of the handsomest buildings" in New York City. According to the Real Estate Record and Guide, 20 Exchange Place was "conservative modern in style and classic proportions". By contrast, architecture critic Robert A. M. Stern wrote in his 1987 book New York 1930 that 20 Exchange Place's proximity to other skyscrapers including 70 Pine Street, 1 Wall Street, 40 Wall Street, and the Downtown Athletic Club "had reduced the previous generation of skyscrapers to the status of foothills in a new mountain range". The building was designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission as a city landmark in 1996. In 2007, the building was designated as a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district.