Equitable Building (Manhattan)

About

The Equitable Building is an office skyscraper located at 120 Broadway, between Pine and Cedar streets, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, in New York City. The skyscraper was designed by Ernest R. Graham in the Neoclassical style, with Peirce Anderson as the architect-in-charge. It is 555 feet (169 m) tall, with 38 stories and 1.2 million square feet (110,000 m2) of floor space. The building's articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital.

The Equitable Building replaced the Equitable Life Building, the previous headquarters of the Equitable Life Insurance Company, which burned down in 1912. Work on the Equitable Building started in 1913 and was completed in 1915. Upon opening, it was the largest office building in the world by floor area. The Equitable Building hosted a variety of tenants and, by the 1920s, was the most valuable building in New York City. The Equitable Life Insurance Company, the building's namesake, occupied a small portion of the building until it moved out during 1960. The owner as of 2022, Silverstein Properties, purchased the Equitable Building in 1980 and has renovated it multiple times.