Equitable Building (Manhattan)
in New York, United StatesCategory: Attraction
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Equitable Life Building, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271, USA Print route »
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The Equitable Building is a 40-story office building in New York City, located at 120 Broadway between Pine and Cedar Streets in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. A landmark engineering achievement as a skyscraper, it was designed by Ernest R. Graham — the successor to D. H. Burnham & Company — with Peirce Anderson as the architect-in-charge, and completed in 1915, when it was the largest office building in the world by floor area: on a plot of just less than 1 acre (4,000 m2), the building had 1.2 million square feet (110,000 m2) of floor space. Built to be the headquarters of the Equitable Life Insurance Company, the controversy surrounding its construction without setbacks, which does not allow sunlight to reach the surrounding ground, contributed to the adoption of the first modern building and zoning restrictions on vertical structures in Manhattan, the 1916 Zoning Resolution. Although it is now dwarfed by taller buildings in its vicinity, it still retains a distinctive identity in its surroundings on Lower Broadway.The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978 and a New York City landmark in 1996. It was restored in 1983–90 by Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Whitelaw.
