Anonymous Owners Prepare Legendary FiDi Bank Building for Unspecified Use
After standing vacant for more than a quarter of a century, the former J.P. Morgan headquarters at 23 Wall Street may soon stir back to life. At the September 10 meeting of the Landmarks Preservation Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1), Sarah Sher, a consultant who specializes in restoring historic structures, “we’re here to propose new entrances and signage to get the building ready for possible tenancy.”
Part of the plan is to recreate an entrance on the Wall Street side of the building that was used through the 1920s, but later sealed up. This second entrance will make it possible to divide the building’s 160,000-square-foot between two tenants. Signs will identify the businesses that ultimately rent space there. (Both alterations require an advisory opinion from CB1 and permission from City regulators, owing to 23 Wall’s status as a legally protected landmark.)
The 1914 neoclassical structure at the corner of Broad and Wall Streets has been empty since J.P. Morgan vacated the premises in 1988, after which it changed hands among property speculators every few years, but never found an enduring new use – apart from intermittently serving instead as a temporary venue for movie shoots, seasonal pop-up shops, and upscale parties.
In 2008, a shadowy conglomerate, China Sonangol, bought the building for $150 million. Headed by billionaire Sam Pa (one Congressional probe cited eight known aliases that he was alleged to use, and he was targeted by U.S. sanctions in 2014), China Sonangol agreed in 2016 to sell the building to real estate developer Jack Terzi, for $140 million. But after accepting a $17 million downpayment, China Sonangol never closed on the purchase, which sparked a years-long court battle. In 2020, Mr. Terzi settled the suit on terms allowing him to lease the property for 99 years, rather than purchase it outright. In the years since, Mr. Terzi has marketed slivers of the building to various prospective tenants as the potential home for a gym, comedy club, bowling alley, video arcade, and movie theater, as well as a Uniqlo department store. None of these proposal was ever implemented.
During the September 10 meeting, CB1’s Landmarks Preservation chair, Jason Friedman, asked Fernando Papale, of BP Architects, “who owns the building?”
Mr. Papale replied, “we really don’t know. I think the ownership should be still under China Sonangol. We work for a lessor who has rented the building for 99 years.”
The ashlar and pink Tennessee marble structure is a former tabernacle of American capitalism. When completed the year before World War One began, it instantly became famous as the most important address in American finance. The investment bank based within, J.P. Morgan & Company, acted as a kind of unofficial central bank – stabilizing stock markets, steadying the value of American currency, and lending to the U.S. government – in the years before the modern Federal Reserve system came into being. Such was the quiet authority of the firm that it never felt the need to emblazon its own name on the outside of the building. Although the address (but not the firm’s name) was visible on a small sign beside the front door, generations of cognoscenti referred to 23 Wall Street simply as, “the corner.”
This diffident discretion did not spare J.P. Morgan & Company from the wrath of a bomber, who set off an explosion outside the building on September 16, 1920, which killed 38 people and inflicted millions of dollars in damage. The crime was never solved, and pockmarks from the blast remain visible on the exterior stone of 23 Wall Street to this day.
Designed by the firm of Trowbridge and Livingston (creators of other iconic New York structures, such as the American Museum of Natural History), 23 Wall was declared a New York City landmark in 1965. Sadly, although 23 Wall’s exterior was given legally protected status, its interior was not set aside for preservation, with the result that its beautiful oak paneling is now gone. A 1,900-piece Louis Quinze crystal chandelier was also removed, but it found a new home in the lobby next door, when the former office building at 15 Broad Street was redeveloped for residential use.
At the conclusion of the September 10 presentation about 23 Wall, Ms. Sher said, “we’re very excited to activate this space that has been vacant for decades,” but was unable to provide details about what kind of tenants might set up shop there. This prompted CB1 member Sean Cole to retort testily, “it’s not going to be a store. It’s going to be a frigging event space.”