Support for the mural – The Broadsheet

The lobby of One Wall Street enjoys legally protected status as a rare “interior landmark”

Lower Manhattan has a brand new landmark: The lobby of the former Irving Trust Building (opened in 1931 as a bank headquarters and in recent years converted into residential condominiums) has been designated by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) as an interior landmark. The exterior of the building, designed by legendary architect Ralph Walker and known as One Wall Street, was named an exterior landmark in 2001.

Known as “The Red Room” for the murals by artist Hildreth Meière (whose work also appears in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Bartholomew’s Church, Emmanuel Temple, and Radio City Music Hall), the space was originally a reception hall and banking room for the Irving Trust.

At its June 25 meeting, the LPC voted to protect the Red Room, noting that its “walls, ceiling and columns shimmer with warm-colored mosaic tiles that shift from red to orange on the ceiling, and the gold tiles create spiderweb-like patterns that shimmer against the red background and draw the eye upward.”

LPC President Sarah Carroll called the Red Room “one of New York City’s architectural gems from the height of the Art Deco era” and predicted that “after a thoughtful restoration, the dazzling beauty of the Red Room will once again be open for the public to experience and enjoy.” This was a reference to French luxury department store Printemps’ plans to open in the space later this year.

The preservation of the Red Room represents a partial victory for the Lower Manhattan community. Nearly a decade ago, as the transformation of One Wall Street into apartments began, Community Board 1 passed a resolution calling for interior landmark status for the Red Room and the former Observation Lounge on the building’s 49th floor. Although the LPC took eight years to act on CB1’s recommendation regarding the Red Room, it completely ignored calls to protect the latter space, which has since been transformed and absorbed by a penthouse apartment occupying several floors at the top of the building, meaning it is forever lost to the public.

The PLC also ignored (and apparently lost sight of the public) a mural that once adjoined the Red Room, “The Pursuit of Wealth,” by artist Kimon Nicolaides, which was partially destroyed by the installation of an air-conditioning duct in 1965, with the remainder since covered over. CB1’s 2016 resolution notes that the mural’s copper and gold inlays on a pure silver surface were “one of the most expensive and beautiful pieces of wall decoration ever made in the United States.”

Although the LPC has granted various forms of legal protection to more than 38,000 buildings and sites across the five boroughs, designating an interior space as a landmark is relatively rare, having been granted only 123 times. These include more than a dozen sites in Lower Manhattan, such as the interior of the Woolworth Building, the Battery Maritime Building, and the Cunard Building, as well as a trio of local architectural gems that were, like One Wall Street, designed by Ralph Walker: 32 Avenue of the Americas, 60 Hudson Street, and the Barclay-Vesey Building.