American Surety Building


The American Surety Building is a skyscraper located at 100 Broadway, in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City, north of Trinity Church. One of Manhattan's most influential early skyscrapers, it is a New York City designated landmark.

History

The building was constructed from 1894 to 1896, following designs by noted architect Bruce Price. It was one of Manhattan's first buildings with steel framing and curtain wall construction. At its original 21 stories, it was Price's first tall building and the second tallest building in New York.
In an interview, Price described his design as "a campanile with four pilaster faces, the seven flutes being represented by seven rows of windows". The building is set on an irregular, trapezoidal lot, and designed as a Neo-Renaissance tower clad in Maine granite with a 3-story base, a 12-story shaft, and a 6-story cap. The base is an Ionic entrance colonnade topped with sculptures in a classical style by J. Massey Rhind. Above rises a middle section of horizontally banded piers with vertical strips framing the windows, which culminates in a row of figural sculptures extending from the 14th to 15th stories. A further six-story cap featured a colonnade of Corinthian pilasters, stone cornice, and a crowning parapet of gilded metal acroteria on the setback 20th and 21st stories.
The North American Trust Company was organized in early 1896, and at the start of 1898, the company was located in the American Surety Building at 100 Broadway.
In 1920-1922, New York architect Herman Lee Meader supervised alterations, which included a new L-shaped annex that widened the tower from 7 to 11 bays, and addition of several stories, which greatly modified the original cap.