Drexel Building, Wall Street, Corner Broad Street

The brand new Drexel Building on the southeast corner of Wall Street and Broad Street. Photograph published as stereograph card (Stereographs of New York City - New Series 1873-4). Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Continue below...

The Drexel, Morgan & Co. acquired the property by March 1872 or before. The old buildings (see photo on the right) were demolished in 1872 to make way for the Drexel Building, completed about April 1873.

This office building was occupied by Drexel, Morgan & Co. and the Leather Manufacturers' National Bank. Its façade was built of white marble, in the Renaissance style. After Anthony Joseph Drexel’s death in June 1893, the company was reorganized in 1894 and became J.P. Morgan & Co.

By March, 1912, the property owned by Drexel estate, considered to be the most valuable site in Manhattan, was acquired by J.P. Morgan & Co., which had leased the premises until then. Tenants moved out before May 1, 1913. Demolition of the Drexel Building was completed in July. The foundations of the new Morgan Guaranty Trust Company Building, at 23 Wall Street, began in the same month.