The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has unanimously voted to designate the 1 Wall Street Banking Room Interior, also known as the Red Room, as a landmark in Manhattan’s Financial District. Completed in 1931, this unique and elaborately tiled space served as a reception room and banking hall for the Irving Trust and Bank Company. The Red Room represents the work of architect Ralph Walker and muralist Hildreth Meière.
Designed to project an image of permanence and wealth after the 1929 financial market collapse, the Red Room is a visually striking space with walls that mimic the curved stone façades of 1 Wall Street, one of the earliest Art Deco skyscrapers in New York City and itself a designated landmark. The room’s walls, ceiling, and columns feature mosaic tiles in warm colors that fade from red to orange across the ceiling, creating an elaborate style that departs from the more typical stone banking halls of the era.
1 Wall Street Banking Room, via nyc.gov
The designation of the Red Room as an interior landmark comes as part of an office-to-residential conversion project at 1 Wall Street, which will create 566 units of housing and ground-floor retail. The restoration of the Red Room will include using a newly discovered trove of surplus original tiles to restore the murals, and the space will soon reopen as the first New York City location of the French luxury retailer Printemps.
Hildreth Meière, the artist behind the mosaics, was a trailblazer for women in the fields of architecture and design. Her work can also be found in other New York City landmarks, including the AT&T Long Distance Building and Radio City Music Hall. Ralph Walker, the architect of 1 Wall Street, was a principal of the firm Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker and designed several other New York City landmarks, including the Western Union Building at 60 Hudson Street and the Barclay-Vesey Building.
“The 1 Wall Street Banking Room, one of the most beautiful interior spaces in New York, is now designated as a landmark within a major office-to-residential conversion project,” said Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development and Workforce Maria Torres-Springer. “With the designations of 1 Wall Street and the Banking Room, LPC emphasizes how our goals of preserving historic spaces and building housing are complementary.”
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Formerly, I was a “lobbyist” and enjoyed viewing the grand interior spaces of office buildings and banks. With changes in usage, and generally after 9-11, many were closed to the general public. I am pleased to see this will be a retail space open to all.
Yes..Well expressed, David !
Prewar lobbies are some of the greatest treasures of NYC. Due to 9/11 and Covid, most of them are now inaccessible, including the reading room at the 42nd Street library (which I used to practically live in when I was in grad school), unless you’re actually doing research or on a tour. This is unacceptable as a status quo. There should be a movement among those who appreciate these spaces to reverse it.
Marvellous news. And also very good news that another high end retailer in moving into a prime street corner b