140 Broadway

140 Broadway (formerly known as the Marine Midland Building or the HSBC Bank Building) is a 51-story International Style office building on the east side of Broadway between Cedar and Liberty streets in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft, of the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and consists of a mostly smooth black facade on a trapezoidal plot. It is approximately 688 feet (210 m) tall, with approximately 1.17 million rentable square feet (109,000 m²). It is known for the distinctive sculpture at its entrance, Isamu Noguchi's Cube.

The developer Erwin S. Wolfson acquired the site in several stages between 1952 and 1961. Initial plans called for a 36-story monolith, but when Wolfson died, the architects modified their plans to a 51-story tower, which occupied only two-fifths of the block and conformed to the 1961 Zoning Resolution. The building was erected between late 1964 and 1967 and was originally known for its main tenant, the Marine Midland Corporation (later part of HSBC). Several early tenants were affiliated with the financial industry, including banking and accounting firms. In 1998, the building was sold to Silverstein Properties, which undertook a major renovation.

The primary tenant of the building since 2002 is Brown Brothers Harriman, filling a vacancy left after HSBC relocated in 2001. The building has been owned by Union Investment since 2004, and the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building as a city landmark in 2013. Reviews of the building among architecture critics have been largely positive, with several praising the structure's smooth black facade.

140 Broadway is located on an entire city block bounded to the west by Broadway, to the north by Liberty Street, to the east by Nassau Street, and to the south by Cedar Street. The block is an irregular trapezoid, with all of its frontages being of different lengths. The block measures 144 feet (44 m) along Broadway, 318 feet (97 m) along Liberty Street, 184 feet (56 m) along Nassau Street, and 301 feet (92 m) along Cedar Street. The building occupies two-fifths of the block, with dimensions of between 87 and 209 feet (27 and 64 m). Its footprint is rhomboid, matching the shape of the block. Roger N. Radford, the leader of the team that designed 140 Broadway, stated that many of the tenants he knew were unaware of the building's "funny shape".

Within 140 Broadway's immediate surroundings are One Liberty Plaza to the northwest; the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York and the Liberty Tower to the north; the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building to the northeast; 28 Liberty Street to the east; the Equitable Building to the south; the Trinity and United States Realty Buildings to the southwest; and Zuccotti Park to the west. Trinity Church and Wall Street are located two blocks south.

The six plots on the block had been owned by different entities including The Clearing House, the National Bank of Commerce, and the Guaranty Trust Company (later part of J.P. Morgan & Co.), and had five buildings between nine and nineteen stories tall. The plots were combined under a common ownership between 1952 and 1962.

The Guaranty Trust Company acquired 140 Broadway, then consisting of just the southeast corner of Broadway and Liberty Street, in 1911. Guaranty Trust also obtained part of the adjacent 132 Broadway to the south. The 7-story Mutual Life Insurance Building, designed by York & Sawyer in a neoclassical style, was constructed on the site in 1912.

The American Exchange National Bank had occupied the site at 128 Broadway (at the corner with Cedar Street) since 1857–1858. The American Exchange National Bank Building, a 16-story early skyscraper, was built there in 1900. The exterior was made of granite and Indiana limestone, while the interior was made of marble. To the south, a 5-story commercial building had existed at 130 Broadway since the mid-19th century; this structure had a Victorian design with a limestone facade. In 1912, the American Exchange Bank purchased the building and demolished it to enlarge their own building. In 1928, the buildings were sold to the Guaranty Trust Company, after the American Exchange Bank's merger with the Irving Trust Company. At 77–81 Cedar Street was the New York Clearing House Building, the site for which was acquired in 1893. The Clearing House commissioned Robert W. Gibson in 1894 to design an Italian Renaissance structure made of white marble. The building was three stories high, with a domed roof, a Corinthian colonnade on the lower stories, and statues on the third story of the facade.