Reply With QuoteHere's the panel I removed from one of the upper floors on the 14 story part of the building fronting Wall St
Former 60 Wall St
I haven't been active on the forum in ages but do read it now and then!
I've been trying to locate some photos of the old 60 Wall Street building that was demolished in 1975, way back then I was 15 and snuck in one early morning around 4 AM on a saturday and figuring there was a security guard inside watching the tools etc I climbed up to the top on the scaffold. The tower in the back was 32 floors but a couple were already gone so that's where the scaffold topped out but on the work platform up there I saw some massive sized terracotta sculpted faces, I didn't risk turning on the flashlight but in the moonlight I could see them, they must have been 4-5 high.
I went down on a lower floor on the Wall St side and dug out a terracotta panel from the facade, it took all day and I had to find a rope long enough to lower it to the ground in the back, I did amazingly find a tope long enough and lowered the 100# sculpture to the ground, went down to get it and carry it to my bike chained to a post on Pine st when the security guy stopped me and told me to leave it there and get out. I snuck back in when it was dark and retrieved it later
Anyway, ever since then I've wondered what those faces looked like on the tower, also I remember there being 4 massive carved stone draped female caryatids on the 2nd floor, I remember they had inscriptions of "Asia, Africa, America, Europe" and each figure resembled the ethnic group named, they must have been 14-16 feet high set between windows, and I NEVER found a photo until the other night, and even then all I found is a couple of really crappy, and low res photos, 2 of which show just part of one of the female carvings at an extreme angle.
There was also next door, I guess was 58 or 56 Wall St a building that had a refrigerator sized lion keystone on it around the 2nd floor, I remember see that stone later laying in the vacant lot like it was being saved for someone, and it was as big as a regular single door refrigerator, must have weighed 2-3 tons.
One of the photos I found the other night I can just make out what looks like a huge terracotta eagle was on top of the facade wall on the 14th floor, it looked to be maybe 6 foot tall.
The building was from 1905 and was the tallest built at the time, surely there would be some photos I haven't found yet! I really would like to see these details.
I shot a couple of photos with a cheap instamatic back in 1975 but Wall St was so dark the one of the lion was completely useless, and the faces were gone from the tower in the other shot when I took that photo.
All the photos I've found of Wall St so far are like it seems EVERYONE and their brother from 1850 forwards stood in exactly the same 3 spots and shot the exact same photos! One appears to have been from standing right in front of 60 Wall looking towards Trinity church, another is of the Federal Hall with the steps and Washington's statue, and the last one is of the stock market building.
Here's some photos, if anyone knows of other ones showing this building I'd like to know about it, seems Getty and an archive have a high res photo of one of these but they want an insane $575 for a copy!
The photo with the blue arrow points to what in another photo appears to be an eagle, the photo with the yellow arrows points to 2 of the large faces, there were 5 up there on that taller tower facing Wall St (may have been 5 more on the Pine St side I don't know) I believe they depicted Mercury with a winged helmet.
The other photos at street level, one shows where that lion keystone was, and the others show 1 and 2 of the large female draped carvings.
Last edited by UrbanSculptures; March 1st, 2017 at 01:00 AM.
Here's the panel I removed from one of the upper floors on the 14 story part of the building fronting Wall St
you're my new hero
Wow, intrepid urban explorer or what?!
I've looked through likely sources in my large NYC book collection but couldn't find any different photos.
It's a real shame that these buildings were lost.
Thanks for checking, yes, it's a real shame.Originally Posted by Merry
Back in the 70s and early 80s when I was a teen, I used to go in abandoned buildings and buildings being demolished and take home ornamental terracotta, cast iron and anything else interesting, by the time I was 19 I had 50 tons of the stuff stored in several lofts, my book tells the whole story, with photos.
http://wolfpause.com/
wow that's wacky, the whole thing from being able to hoard all that to ending up in Iowa. I'm guessing the statute of limitations is up or all these building owners would be looking for their stuff (that miraculously are now intere$ted in preserving where once they were going to let rot & perish)
The vast majority of the buildings were abandoned, meaning the owners walked away and gave up all rights, the city took them over, condemned them and demolished them.
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