Equitable Life Building (Manhattan)

The Equitable Life Assurance Building, also known as the Equitable Life Building, was the headquarters of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, at 120 Broadway in Manhattan, New York. Arthur Gilman and Edward H. Kendall designed the building, with George B. Post as a consulting engineer. The Equitable Life Building was made of brick, granite, and iron, and was originally built with seven above-ground stories and two basement levels, with a height of at least 130 feet (40 m). An expansion in 1885 brought the total height to 155 feet (47 m) and nine stories.

Construction began in 1868 and was completed in 1870 under the leadership of Equitable's president Henry Baldwin Hyde. It was the world's first office building to feature passenger elevators and consequently became successful attracting tenants. The Equitable Life Building was expanded numerous times; after the construction of annexes during the late 1880s, the building occupied its entire block, bounded by Broadway and Cedar, Pine and Nassau streets. Although it was advertised as fireproof, the Equitable Life Building was destroyed in a 1912 fire that killed six people. The 40-story Equitable Building was completed on the site in 1915.

Arthur Gilman and Edward H. Kendall designed the Equitable Life Building, with George B. Post as a consulting engineer. The building occupied the entire block bordered by Broadway to the west, Cedar Street to the north, Nassau Street to the east, and Pine Street to the south. The Equitable Life Building was made of brick, granite, and iron, and was originally built with seven above-ground stories and two basement levels. This count excluded a pavilion in the mansard roof above the seventh story, which would have counted as an eighth floor.

Accounts differ on the building's height at the time of its completion, with a cited height figure of 142 feet (43 m). According to a contemporary article in The New York Times, the Equitable Life Building was at least 130 feet (40 m) tall. Architect Robert A. M. Stern wrote that was likely the actual height based on a "convincing analysis" by architectural writer Lee Edward Gray. An expansion in 1885 brought the total height to 155 feet (47 m) and nine stories. Up to five separate structures made up the building. Its final height may have been 172 feet (52 m).

The building was touted as fireproof, with innovative features such as elevators and electric lighting. With an ornate arcade, it was described as a predecessor to 20th-century edifices that functioned as "micro-cities".

At Post's suggestion, a structural system of stone was used on the ground story, while brick and terracotta were used on the upper stories. The base was made of "darkish" granite from Quincy, Massachusetts, while the upper stories were clad with lighter granite from Concord, New Hampshire. Behind the granite cladding were walls made of hard-burnt brick from the North River; this brick was also used for party walls and partitions.

As built, the articulation of the second and third stories was designed as if they were a single story, and a similar architectural treatment was used for the fourth and fifth floors. Cornices separated these horizontal groupings, but there was no horizontal separation between the second/third and fourth/fifth floors, leading some observers to describe the Equitable Life Building erroneously as five stories. Rather, the double-story sections contained windows measuring 9 by 17 feet (2.7 by 5.2 m). Vertical piers with paired columns separated the windows.

Equitable leased the basement and first floor to banks, taking the second and third floors for its own offices; commercial tenants leased the remaining floors. The Equitable offices featured the world's "most complete and imposing business hall", a domed clerking hall measuring 35 by 100 feet (11 by 30 m) and supported by twelve marble-clad Corinthian columns. Also within the Equitable Life Building were two raised skylights at the top of the 26-foot-high (7.9 m) ceiling. On the second floor a marble counter enclosed a workspace for 120 or 150 clerks. The offices of 40 officers and agents ran along the periphery of the workroom. A gallery enclosed three sides of the third floor, accessed from a spiral staircase in a corner of the second floor office of Henry Baldwin Hyde, founder of the Equitable Life Assurance Society.