In 1929, a new 50-story building was announced at 30 Broad Street to house the Continental Bank and Trust Company and various brokers. The site extends along Broad Street at, the length of Exchange Place runs from New Street, and runs along New Street. The building site was once owned by the Dutch Reformed Church which had erected the city’s second almshouse on the site before 1659. Broad Street was originally a canal first known as “Common Ditch” then later “The Prince’s Ditch”. The canal was filled in 1676, and it was first paved in 1693.
Design and construction
The estimated cost of the new building was $20 million. The project is the largest single cooperative building venture undertaken to this time. Cross and Cross architects were announced as the building’s planners. An “unusual” feature of the building was a sub-basement clearing house where owner-tenants each have floor space and can transact business with other owner-tenants in the building by a system of pneumatic tubes to exchange receipts. Architects Morris and O’Connor completed drawings in 1931 indicating 48 stories, above street level with a “simple” architecture. According to the architects, the structure is designed to express straightforward business of the highest class without excessive ornamentation. The first three stories of the façade are clad in limestone with the remainder made up of light-colored brick and dark brick at the spandrels. The building footprint rises from street level to floor 20 where the first setback is made until floor 23 where another setback is located.
The building tower then rises from floor 24 to floor 48. The top of the building is flat. The building’s lobby runs through from Broad Street to New Street with two elevator banks which serve the building, one set from the lobby to floor 20 and the other from the lobby to floors 21 through 47. The 48th floor is accessed by stairs from floor 47. Total rentable space is announced as. The building columns sit on new footings which rest upon rocks. The average depth of the new foundations is below Broad Street. However, the Broad Street side of the building rests on existing caissons. An adjoining structure along the southern property line required triple cantilever plate girders to provide headroom for the elevator doors. There are three floors below ground. The total building weight is estimated at 55,000 tons. The demolition of the Johnston building was spanned from May 5 to July 13. The 15-story structure had exterior masonry that bore walls composed ofgranite that were up to three feet thick at the lower walls. The exterior was ashlar granite while the interior was common brick backup laid in cement mortar. The steel structure was only designed to carry the floor loads, because the exterior was self-supporting.
The building appears as the Larrabee Building in the original version of the 1954 movie Sabrina, the address prominent in a scene late in the movie with Audrey Hepburn standing on the sidewalk in front of the building. The building and Broad Street are also seen in an early scene when William Holden parks his car in front of the Larrabee Building. The building is also used as a location in the opening scene of the 1954 movie Executive Suite, also starring William Holden. A businessman walks out of the building, looks up and down Broad Street for a taxi, but then succumbs to a heart attack and drops dead on the sidewalk in front of the entrance.
