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Dollar Savings Bank

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Dollar Savings Bank Landmarks Preservation Commission July 19, 1994, Designation List 259 LP-1890 DOLLAR SAVINGS BANK (now Emigrant Savings Bank), first floor interior, consisting of the two Grand Concourse entrance vestibules, the main banking hall, and the southwest corner stairway leading to the basement; and the basement level interior consisting of the vault lobby; and the fixtures and interior components of these spaces, including, but not limited to, wall surfaces and attached decorative elements including murals, ceiling surfaces, doors, chandeliers and lighting fixtures, decorative bronzework including gates and grilles, and railings; 2516-2530 Grand Concourse, The Bronx. Built 1932-33; 1937-38; architects Halsey, McCormack, & Helmer. Landmark Site: Borough of The Bronx Tax Map Block 3154, Lot 1001. On June 2, 1992, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as an Interior Landmark of the Dollar Savings Banlc, first floor interior, consisting of the two Grand Concourse entrance vestibules, the main banking hall , and the southwest corner stairway leading to the basement; and the basement level interior consisting of the vault lobby; and the fixtures and interior components of these spaces, including, but not limited to, wall surfaces and attached decorative elements including murals , ceiling surfaces, doors , chandeliers and lighting fixtures , decorative bronzework including gates and grilles, and railings, and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Item No. 6). The hearing had been duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law . Four witnesses spoke in favor of designation. There were no speakers in opposition to designation. A representative of bank's current owner, the Emigrant Savings Bank, expressed the bank's approval of designation. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS Summary The interior of Dollar Savings Bank, the first thrift institution to be organized in The Bronx, is a monumental classicizing Art Deco design. The building was initially constructed in 1932-33 as the bank' s Fordham branch office, then enlarged five years later. The initial branch office and the subsequent enlargment were carried out by the noted finn of bank architects, Halsey, McCormack & Helmer, with the same designer, Adolf L. Muller, in charge. Muller's supervision provided consistency in the remarkable and original architectural treatment of the banking room space where each element is an integral part of the architectural program. As initially designed, the interior was a two-story space with structurally uninterrupted tellers' work areas and high clerestories above. An order of elongated terra-cotta corbels, cast in a classicizing Art Deco mode, visually regulated the wall surface. The banking room, an impressive and unobstructed space evoking the strength and stability of savings institutions, achieved its current spatial configuration with a long north-south axis as the result of the 1937-38 enlargement. Elements of the original banking room were replicated, most notably the order of massive corbels, the chamfered comers at the clerestory level, the brass-enclosed vestibule, the bronzework at the window openings, and the chandeliers. The corbel order was integrated with the red marble pilasters on the banking room' s new western and eastern walls. The correspondence of the silver-leafed and paneled ceiling' s broad ribs with the corbels unifies the enlarged space. The banking room is further enhanced by the five murals on the east wall, painted by Angelo Magnanti, mosaicist and illustrator, which depict scenes of the Bronx' s early European settlement. Since 1992, the space, which remains remarkably intact and is accessible to the public, has housed a branch of the Emigrant Savings Bank. Bronx Development1 With the growth in the area's population during Until the mid-nineteenth century, the block the 1920s, Fordham Road, from Jerome Avenue to formed by the Grand Concourse, East 192nd Street, Webster Avenue, became lined with retail shops. Valentine A venue, and East Fordham Road on The Adam Wertheimer Department Store which the bank is located, was a part of the farm of established itself at the northwest corner of the John Valentine, described as located at Fordham in Concourse and East Fordham Road, several movie the Town of West Farms. Only in 1888 did palaces -- the RKO Fordham, the Concourse, the Valentine's heirs begin to sell the land. Valentine, and the Windsor -- were constructed Improvements in transportation throughout the nearby, and automobile showrooms opened further nineteenth century not only made the Bronx more down either side of the ridge. But the most direct accessible to Manhattan but contributed to its impetus to the commercial development of these growth. The New York & Harlem Railroad blocks occurred when the Eighth Avenue IND (1838), following the Bronx River valley, was subway line, which continued uptown under the opened to White Plains by 1844 and established Grand Concourse, opened in 1931-32. Although stations at Morrisania, West Farms (Fordham), and the Hub at Third and Willis A venues was the Yonkers. The Third Avenue & Fordham Railroad, borough's major shopping district, Fordham Road a horse car line formed in 1861 , though never at the Concourse was fast becoming another. completed, was succeeded two years later by the Alexander's, with its main store in the Hub, opened Harlem Bridge, Morrisania & Fordham Railroad a branch in the remodelled Adam Wertheimer Company. Electric-powered trolley lines were store. The Dollar Bank for Savings, likewise introduced in 1892. But for the greater part of the headquartered in the Hub, established a branch first century, the high ground just north of Fordham at 2480 Grand Concourse in 1932, then up the Road between the Harlem and Bronx Rivers boulevard at No. 2516. remained largely unaffected by the development that redefined the south Bronx. A Brief History of the Dollar Savings Bank5 It was the introduction of the Grand Concourse, The Dollar Savings Bank of the City of New begun in 1902 and finished in 1909, running from York, the first thrift institution to be organized in 16lst Street to Mosholu Parkway, which gave the Bronx (1887), received its charter in 1890 and access to this ridge and spurred its development. opened its doors at 2808 Third A venue, just below The impetus behind the Grand Concourse, 2 came, the intersection of Third and Willis A venues and in part, from the influential members of the Rider 148th Street. 6 Its founder and first president, John & Driver Club, many of whom belonged to the Haffen (1847-1910), was also one of the organizers American Jockey Club and were habitues of the and served as vice-president of the Twenty-third Jerome Park Racing Association Grounds, 3 who Ward Bank. 7 Among the Dollar Bank's early advocated a road free of commercial traffic and trustees were Charles W. Bogart, president of th<: limited to pleasure driving. Influential Bronx Twenty-third Ward Bank and George E . Edwards, residents favored the new road as well; members of Haffen's successor as president of the Dollar. the Haffen family of Melrose were particularly These business leaders and their associates involved with the improvements of the borough's represented the vanguard of the borough's streets and highways. 4 Bronx Borough President commercial developers in the first half of this Louis Haffen officiated at the ground breaking in century.8 Neither descendants of the Bronx's older 1902. The tree-lined four-and-one-half mile long landowning families nor scions of the well-to-do road was 180 feet wide with a central roadway city merchants whose estates formed a patchwork flanked by outer roadways, although the across the borough, these men grew up in and Concourse's central carriage drive was not paved around the Hub (in Morrisania, Port Morris and until 1925 when five- and six-story apartment Melrose) . buildings had replaced single-family houses. This These business leaders, who thought of increased real-estate activity was the result of the themselves as "progressives, " moved quickly to opening of the elevated branch of the Lexington control the new borough's development. A venue IRT over Jerome A venue, to the west of Establishing the Dollar Savings Bank as a mutual the Concourse, in 1918, and it was that year that savings bank assured that most local savings would the block created by the Grand Concourse, l 92nd not leave the borough.9 The Dollar Bank's trustees Street, Valentine Avenue, and East Fordham Road used the savings deposits to fund improvements in was subdivided into lots. the borough. 2 Howell Taylor Manson (1875-1944), fourth Banlcs and Architectural Imagery 16 president of the Dollar Savings Banlc, initiated the The freestanding banlc building, although not a banlc's branch expansion. A native of Greenpoint, new building type, became more prevalent at the Brooklyn, he began his lifelong career in banlcing end of the last century when the savings bank as a clerk at the Third National Banlc (New York) industry made itself more accessible to the in 1895. After a year at Goldman Sachs, he joined individual depositor. Edward Hale Kendall's the Gallatin Banlc in 1897, becoming an officer in German Savings Banlc (1872) on Union Square was 1902, and remained with the Gallatin through its an early example in the Second Empire style. merger with the National Hanover Banlc (1912) Robert W. Gibson's building for the Greenwich until 1920. He joined the board of trustees of the Savings Banlc (1892) at Sixth Avenue and West Dollar Savings Banlc in 1911, becoming the 16th Street marked a return to the classical orders Dollar' s treasurer in 1920 and comptroller two from the intervening Queen Anne and Romanesque years later. Manson, who was president from 1925 Revival styles. Other examples of classically­ until 1941, embodied the "progressive" spirit of the inspired banlc buildings include the Banlc for banlc's founders.
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