Wilks Building and New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street

Buildings on Wall Street, corner of Broad Street, showing the old Wilks Building in the center and the adjoining New York Stock Exchange (8 Broad Street), on the left. Camera set up at left and G. Washington statue at right, in front of the US Sub-Treasury (now Federal Hall Memorial National Historic Site). Part of Trinity Church is seen on Broadway. Photograph by Irving Underhill, copyright 1921. This is one of the last images of this historical building. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Wilks Building was a 11-story Second Empire building, with a two-story mansard roof. It was erected by Matthew Astor Wilks (1844-1926) in 1889-1890. The plot was 84.1 feet on Wall Street and 58.2 feet on Broad Street. It was acquired by Wilks from 1876 to 1884. It housed, for example, the Kidder Peabody & Co., the Harris, Winthrop & Co., the Cyrus J. Lawrence & Sons and some local headquarters of financial companies from England, especially in the early years. The New York Stock Exchange leased the building for four terms of 20 years each. The building was demolished in the second half of 1920 and replaced by the 23-story New York Stock Exchange Annex.