The original structure at 64–66 Broadway was completed in 1894 to the designs of the architects of Kimball & Thompson, and was slightly extended north in 1904 to 68–70 Broadway. It was the first skyscraper to pass 330 ft (100 m) in Manhattan.
The building was sold at least twice. In 1926, the Manhattan Life Insurance Company sold the building to Frederick Brown, who then re-sold it to the Manufacturer's Trust Company a few weeks later. Then, in 1928, Central Union Trust Company, whose headquarters were in adjacent structures to the north, bought 70 Broadway for an undisclosed sum, although the building was assessed at that time at $4 million.[4] Following the Central Union Trust Company's sale of the buildings to the north to the Irving Trust Company, which then built a new skyscraper at 1 Wall Street, Central Union Trust moved to the Manhattan Life Building[5] and modified the structures at 60, 62, and 70 Broadway.[6]
The building was demolished to make way for an annex to 1 Wall Street, completed in 1965. Sources vary about whether the year of demolition was 1963 or 1964.[1][2][7]
^Korom, Joseph (2008). The American skyscraper, 1850-1940: a celebration of height. Branden Books. pp. 199. ISBN978-0-8283-2188-4. "In 1936, the Manhattan Life Insurance Company relocated its offices to One-Hundred-Twenty West 57th Street in midtown Manhattan. Then, catastrophe arrived when the building was only 69 years old; in a 1963 act of utter desecration, the Manhattan Life Insurance Building was demolished."
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