Equitable Building

The Equitable Building is a 36-storey office building in Manhattan. It was built in 1915 and is located at 120 Broadway (and is often called as such), within the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. If viewed from above, the skyscraper takes on the appearance of the letter H. It is 538 feet (163 meters) tall. With a total floor area of 1,206501 sq feet, it was the largest building by total floor area in the world at the time of its completion.

Although the Equitable Building was a milestone in terms of architecture, its mammoth size earned it enormous controversy, mainly because its bulk casts a huge 7-acre shadow on the surrounding streets. Due to opposition towards such huge structures, the 1916 Zoning Resolution was put in place which limited the height of buildings as well as requiring new buildings to be set back from the street, to allow sunlight to reach the street level.

Equitable Building, New York City
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Equitable_Building.jpg
Author: Yottabytedev


What we see of the Equitable Building was already much reduced from the original plan, which was to erect a 62-story skyscraper. This was reduced to 40 stories when the site was bought over by the Equitable Life Assurance Society. The height was reduced again, to 36 stories, on the advise of consulting engineers, to make it optimal for its elevators.

As a result of the 1916 Zoning Resolution, latter skyscrapers such as the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building were tiered to conform to this requirement. Building design evolved again in the 1960's, when architects responded put wide plazas around new skyscrapers, to conform to the building code. Thus was the case with the former World Trade Center.

The Equitable Building was bought by Larry Silverstin in 1980, and is today still owned by Silverstein Properties. Among the tenants here include Adam Leitman Bailey, Citibank, HSBC, McCall Pattern, New York Life Insurance Company and the New York State Attorney General office.

Getting there

Nearest subway stations are Fulton St (4,5) and Wall St (4,5).

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Thanks for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye. My hobby is to research information about places, and share the information with people on this website. I started this website on 5 January 2003, and since then, have written about over 20,000 places, mostly in Malaysia and Singapore.

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