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The Broad Street National Bank Building, located at the corner of
Montgomery Street and East State Street, is responsible for many of
Trenton’s firsts including most notably, the city’s first skyscraper.
Designed by William A. Poland and built over two decades to quench the
demand for office space in the capitol city, this structure stands
today as the as only example of early twentieth century New York
School skyscraper architecture as well as the only example in the
downtown of French Renaissance architecture. Located in the center of
the capitol city’s downtown district, two blocks to the east of the
National Register listed New Jersey State House and State House
Historic District, the National Register listed War Memorial & Edison
State College’s Kelsey Building and two blocks south of the listed
Battle Monument, the Broad Street Bank Building is yet another
testimony to the city’s rich architectural history and craftsmanship.
The Broad Street Bank Building clearly used as it precedents the works
of Adler and Sullivan in the Guaranty Building of 1894-95 and the
Wainwright Building of 1890-91. The Home Life Insurance Company
Building by William Jenny is another prototype clearly referenced. As
an early skyscraper, the Broad Street Bank Building, similar to these
prominent works, hides its steel skeleton behind a decorative masonry
veneer. Carefully used patterned openings serve to illustrate a
distinctly columnar, modern skyscraper structure.
The Broad Street Bank Building was built in three phases. The
eight-story corner skyscraper was built first in 1900 and was
succeeded in 1913 by the 12-story addition fronting East State Street.
The final rear eight-story Montgomery Street side addition was
constructed in 1923. The original 1900 structure was the city’s first
building to be built over four stories and the first city structure
built using steel frame construction. In 1913 Poland designed the
12-story addition to the East State Street frontage to expand the
banking floor and add additional retail and office space. The final
eight-story South Montgomery Street addition built in 1923 completed
this important city corner. The entire structure uses the many of the
same details of the original building in its additions so that it
appears as one cohesive design, built by the one hand.
Both the original eight-story structure and the later 12-story
addition were typical rectangular plan forms with the major axis
parallel to Montgomery Street. The final eight story addition is also
rectangular in plan with it major axis parallel to East State Street.
Sectional, the original structure and the final addition are joined by
a mezzanine and balcony area while the original structure and the
12-story addition were once joined in plan at the first floor level in
order to enlarge the banking room floor. Up until the 1960's when
Fleet Bank bought the Broad Street Bank, the building was a functional
banking institution, with many of the original interior details
exposed and these original sectional and plan maneuverings still in
place. The building as it stands today no longer is home to its
original benefactors, and its once open two-story banking room floor
with mezzanine is disguised and per served by a drop ceiling. The open
floor plan has also been since divided into several first floor retail
businesses establishments in order to make the building marketable.
The original eight-story corner structure used for the bank’s daily
business, first floor retail and upper story professional offices is
constructed of a heavy first floor Indiana limestone base capped with
a decorative masonry cornice and accentuated with a Greek key engraved
masonry course of terra cotta. Decorative French balconies, at the
cornice level adorn the two exterior pairs of windows. The second
floor with decorative terra cotta banding every seventh course and
distinctive Roman Pompeiian brick highlights the once prestigious
mezzanine level. The third through seventh floors, the column shaft,
are made from a slightly deeper shade of the Roman Pompeiian brick in
a common bond pattern. Framing the shaft on the corner side of
Montgomery and East Side is an interlocking course of decorative
brickwork corbeling slightly relieved from the main shaft of the
column and serving to emphasize and highlight the edge and wrap of the
cornerwork. The eight-floor entablature is begun with another
decorative cornice, which enables a more delicate and detailed
capital. This final floor is composed of segmental arch terra cotta
decoration at the window heads and four ceremonial columns holding up
the copper cornice. The one and one half foot copper cornice with
dentil molding overhangs the building approximately one foot creating
dramatic shadow lines.
The original 1900 corner building has a symmetrical East State Street
facade. Although, now removed and replaced by black granite columns
and rectangular storefront openings, three 15-foot high arched
openings, similar to the Montgomery Street windows in size and
ornamentation, added to the grand scale of the bank entry. The
building’s original steel windows are situated in pairs and ties with
a sill course of trim so that the column shaft appears tripartite.
This window pairing carries through to both the 1913 and 1923
additions. The second floor or mezzanine level window openings are
rectangular double hung with no exterior trim work except for terra
cotta key moldings at the window heads. The third through fifth floors
and including the seventh floor are again rectangular double hung
openings, but here Poland chose to place terra cotta molded trim
around the jambs and head to contrast again the background base color
brick. Both the sixth and eighth floors have arched openings but have
respectively different ornamentation and trim work. The upper of the
two floors commemorates the importance of the penthouse suite with
much more terra cotta decoration in a more delicate manner, and the
lower of the two floors uses the same terra cotta trim work similar to
the rest of the column shaft windows with additional decorative terra
cotta keys at the window heads.
The Montgomery Street side of the original 1900 building follows the
same window patterns and decorative detailing as the East State Street
facade except for some minor features. Since the site begins to start
dropping off toward Front Street, a concrete base is added below the
limestone coursing to account for this elevation change. Large arched
windows on the first floor level which all were originally made of
Tiffany glass are gone filled in with rectangular picture windows. In
the year 1998, the last two remaining Tiffany windows located in what
once was the bank President’s office and his private conference room
they appeared dark and opaque from the exterior but were revealed on
the interior as brightly patterned glass mosaics in all ranges of the
color spectrum. The windows had decorative terra cotta panels at the
window base recessed from the main limestone base were at one time
complimented by the same style decorative French balconies as the East
State Street side. The original balconies have been removed several
years ago for safety reasons and their scrolled masonry supports and
crested window keys still stand in soldier position for a few years.
Sadly all the windows and their accessories have been removed from
their locations during the many years the building has been neglected.
The 1914 twelve-story skyscraper addition employs many of the same
features as the original 1900 building. Unlike the original building,
here variations of the shaft’s background brick color to a darker
shade help to contrast the decorative trim work around the window
openings. At the eight floor level, the arched windows and cornice
molding are carried across to achieve a cohesiveness with the original
structure however, the decorative terra cotta window head trim work is
left to the final two stories of the addition. The top two stories are
adorned with decorative terra cotta work engraved in a
flower-patterned design, the ornate details of a Corinthian column
capital. Again the copper cornice with dentil molding finishes the
tower, but this time, pairs of decorative copper brackets and more
delicate and elaborate detailing is employed. Atop the twelve-story
structure is the bank’s original steel BROAD STREET BANK signage. The
slender proportion of the twelve-story structure enables the level of
detailing to become more delicate and hence this portion of the
structure achieves a more feminine quality for not only the capital,
but for the columnar composition.
The final 1923 addition facing Montgomery Street again utilizes most
of the detailing of the original 1900 structure it adjoins. Variations
occur at the base where the limestone is no longer in a scored pattern
but is left to appear as a smooth recessed surface. The first floor
arches are more expansive in the later addition than in the original
structure and are also adorned with larger scalloped brackets in the
key location and circular engraves bank crests. The cornices and
window patterns carry through for the addition from the original
structure to allow for a cohesive piece of work. Interestingly, the
latest addition built almost a quarter of a century after the original
structure, is in need of the most repairs to the copper cornice area.
As illustrated on the exterior, the original banking room floor,
mezzanine and respective top floor level penthouses were the
highlights of the building and as such their interiors were also
celebrated with grand materials such as marble wainscoting, a marble
staircase, decorative wood paneling and cornices. In contrast, both
the interior and exterior of the intermediate office levels are left
as a repetitive blend of background materials. The interior of the
entire first floor massing has been furred over or covered with a drop
ceiling. The Montgomery Street side entrance, where the mezzanine
level looked out over the original banking floor, is still partially
in tact. The ornate carved plaster-ceiling vaults to a height of
almost 30' reviling many small churches in the area. The wood
mezzanine railings and balcony are no longer present along with the
original Frinke light fixtures. Wood dentil molding, although in need
of repair, is still present at the ceiling line as is much of the
original 5' marble and wood wainscoting behind furred out wall
coverings. The original circular vault door by Remington Sherman &
Company, the same designers of Philadelphia mint doors, is still in
functional order and in its original location. All elevators have been
replaced with more modern means of conveyance. The original elevators
were with wood paneled casing and manual iron grate door enclosure
were only present in the twelve-story addition lobby area.
Some of the original interiors are inaccessible, covered over or
concealed behind a drop ceiling and as such it is difficult to tell if
the Tavernelle Claire marble columns covering the steel skeleton are
still left in the banking floor. The original marble-banking floor is
also gone in the new retail areas. Since the walls were handily furred
out, mosaic murals depicting scenes from Trenton history by Aleksandra
Kasuba, the artist who designed the mural for the New York Hilton at
Rockefeller Center, also may be hidden behind the walls.
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