Joie de Vivre

The City Hotel (1794–1849) stood at 123 Broadway, occupying the whole block bounded by Cedar, Temple, and Thames Streets, in today's Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. It was the first functioning hotel in the United States.: 25,caption  Until the early 1840s it was the city's principal site for prestigious social functions and concerts. Designed by John McComb Jr., it offered not only luxurious accommodations, but also such amenities as shops, a barroom, and a coffeehouse, as well as public dining and dancing. Its five stories and 137 rooms replaced the former home of Stephen Delancey, built around 1700, which had become an inn.An 1825 guide-book, first published in 1817, calls it "an immense building, 5 stories in height, [which] contains 78 rooms of various dimensions, fitted up and furnished in a tasteful, elegant and convenient manner … the proprietor of this Hotel makes it his constant study to provide the best of every thing to his visitors." An 1828 expanded edition states: City Hotel, [operated] by Chester Jennings, is the chief place of resort, and … the loftiest edifice of that kind in the city, containing more than one hundred large and small parlours and lodging-rooms, besides the City Assembly Room, chiefly used for Concerts and Balls. The rooms appropriated for private families, parlours, and dining rooms are superbly fitted up, and constantly occupied by respectable strangers. Extensive additions have recently been made to this establishment. The principal Book stores and Libraries are in the vicinity. Prices, over two days, $1.50 per day, $10 per week, $416 per year—Board only, $5.50 per week, dinner only, $3.50 per week. Upon its closing on April 30, 1849, the New York Herald wrote: "In times gone by, it was the first hotel of the country, and the great men of the country always patronized it … ". It was once owned by Ezra Weeks. In 1828 John Jacob Astor bought it. He gave it to a granddaughter, Sara Langdon, who married Francis Robert Boreen in 1834, as a dowry. In 1849–50 she replaced it with a block of stores called the Boreel Building, and in 1878–79 replaced that with an office building, also called the Boreel Building.

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest movement against economic inequality and the influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district, in September 2011. It gave rise to the wider Occupy movement in the United States and other countries. The Canadian anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters initiated the call for a protest. The main issues raised by Occupy Wall Street were social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the undue influence of corporations on government—particularly from the financial services sector. The OWS slogan, "We are the 99%", refers to income and wealth inequality in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. To achieve their goals, protesters acted on consensus-based decisions made in general assemblies which emphasized redress through direct action over the petitioning to authorities.The protesters were forced out of Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011. Protesters then turned their focus to occupying banks, corporate headquarters, board meetings, foreclosed homes, college and university campuses and social media.

Columbian Academy of Painting was one of the earliest art schools in the United States. It was founded by brothers Archibald and Alexander Robertson in 1792. The school was located in New York at 79 Liberty Street. It was one of the country's first art schools. Their students included John Vanderlyn, Francis Alexander, and, rare for the time, woman miniaturist Ann Hall. The brothers taught art to amateur and professional students with a wide variety of mediums and subjects. Their methods were based upon those taught in European and British art schools at that time. The Columbian Academy of Art was renamed the Academy of Painting, which continued to be managed by Archibald. Alexander opened his own art school in 1802.The school operated for 30 years.

Zuccotti Park (formerly Liberty Plaza Park) is a 33,000-square-foot (3,100 m2) publicly accessible park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. It is located in a privately owned public space (POPS) controlled by Brookfield Properties and Goldman Sachs. Zuccotti Park is bounded by Broadway to the east, Liberty Street to the north, Trinity Place to the west, and Cedar Street to the south. The park was created in 1968 by Pittsburgh-based United States Steel, after the property owners negotiated its creation with city officials. It was named Liberty Plaza Park because it was situated one block south of One Liberty Plaza. The park's northwest corner is across the street from Four World Trade Center. It has been popular with local tourists and financial workers. The park was heavily damaged in the September 11 attacks and subsequent recovery efforts of 2001. The plaza was later used as the site of several events commemorating the anniversary of the attacks. After renovations in 2006, the park was renamed by its current owners, Brookfield Office Properties, after company chairman John Zuccotti. In 2011, the plaza became the site of the Occupy Wall Street protest camp, during which activists occupied the plaza and used it as a staging ground for their protests throughout the Financial District.

Double Check is a 1982 sculpture by John Seward Johnson II, located in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, New York City.In July 2018, the statue was relocated to the northwest corner of Broadway and Liberty.

The Trinity Building, designed by Francis H. Kimball and built in 1905, with an addition of 1907,: 1  and Kimball's United States Realty Building of 1907,: 1  located respectively at 111 and 115 Broadway in Manhattan's Financial District, are among the first Gothic-inspired skyscrapers in New York, and both are New York City designated landmarks. The Trinity Building, adjacent to the churchyard of Richard Upjohn's neo-Gothic Trinity Church, replaced an 1853 Upjohn structure of the same name.: 3  Earlier, the Van Cortlandt sugar house stood on the west end of the plot – a notorious British prison where American soldiers were held during the Revolutionary War.

The New York Law Institute is the oldest circulating law library in New York City and is open to Institute members and to scholars of history and the law.

The Equitable Life Assurance Building, also known as the Equitable Life Building, was the headquarters of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, at 120 Broadway in Manhattan, New York. Arthur Gilman and Edward H. Kendall designed the building, with George B. Post as a consulting engineer. The Equitable Life Building was made of brick, granite, and iron, and was originally built with seven above-ground stories and two basement levels, with a height of at least 130 feet (40 m). An expansion in 1885 brought the total height to 155 feet (47 m) and nine stories. Construction began in 1868 and was completed in 1870 under the leadership of Equitable's president Henry Baldwin Hyde. It was the world's first office building to feature passenger elevators and consequently became successful attracting tenants. The Equitable Life Building was expanded numerous times; after the construction of annexes during the late 1880s, the building occupied its entire block, bounded by Broadway and Cedar, Pine and Nassau streets. While touted as fireproof, the Equitable Life Building burned down in a 1912 fire that killed six people. The site was redeveloped with the 40-story Equitable Building, completed in 1915.

The Singer Building (also known as the Singer Tower) was an office building and early skyscraper in Manhattan, New York City. The headquarters of the Singer Manufacturing Company, it was at the northwestern corner of Liberty Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. Frederick Gilbert Bourne, leader of the Singer Company, commissioned the building, which architect Ernest Flagg designed in multiple phases from 1897 to 1908. The building's architecture contained elements of the Beaux-Arts and French Second Empire styles. The building was composed of four distinct sections. The original 10-story Singer Building at 149 Broadway was erected between 1897 and 1898, and the adjoining 14-story Bourne Building on Liberty Street was built from 1898 to 1899. In the first decade of the 20th century, the two buildings were expanded to form the 14-story base of the Singer Tower, which rose another 27 stories. The facade was made of brick, stone, and terracotta. A dome with a lantern capped the tower. The foundation of the tower was excavated using caissons; the building's base rested on shallower foundations. The Singer Building used a steel skeleton, though load-bearing walls initially supported the original structure before modification. When completed, the 41-story building had a marble-clad entrance lobby, 16 elevators, 410,000 square feet (38,000 m2) of office space, and an observation deck. With a roof height of 612 feet (187 m), the Singer Tower was the tallest building in the world from 1908 to 1909, when it was surpassed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower. The base occupied the building's entire land lot; the tower's floors took up just one-sixth of that area. Despite being regarded as a city icon, the Singer Building was razed between 1967 and 1969 to make way for One Liberty Plaza, which had several times more office space than the Singer Tower. At the time of its destruction, the Singer Building was the tallest building ever to be demolished.

One Liberty Plaza, formerly the U.S. Steel Building, is a skyscraper in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is situated on a block bounded by Broadway, Liberty Street, Church Street, and Cortlandt Street, on the sites of the former Singer Building and City Investing Building. The building was designed in the International Style by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and completed in 1973. It is 743 ft (226 m) tall and has 54 floors. At 2.3 million sq ft (210,000 m2), each floor offers almost 1 acre (0.40 ha) of office space, making it one of the largest office buildings in New York by usable interior space. Its facade is black, consisting of a structural steel frame. South of the building is Zuccotti Park, formerly called Liberty Plaza Park. One Liberty Plaza was originally commissioned by U.S. Steel, and also housed the headquarters of Merrill Lynch. A variety of tenants occupy the space, from large law firms to public and not-for-profit agencies like the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation as well as new businesses. Since 2001 One Liberty Plaza has been owned and operated by Brookfield Office Properties.

The City Investing Building, also known as the Broadway–Cortlandt Building and the Benenson Building, was an office building and early skyscraper in Manhattan, New York. Serving as the headquarters of the City Investing Company, it was on Cortlandt Street between Church Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. The building was designed by Francis Kimball and constructed by the Hedden Construction Company. Because of the area's sloping topography, the City Investing Building rose 32 stories above Broadway and 33 stories above Church Street, excluding an attic. The bulk of the building was 26 stories high above Church Street and was capped by a seven-story central portion with gable roofs. The building had an asymmetrical F-shaped footprint with a light court facing Cortlandt Street, as well as a wing to Broadway that wrapped around a real estate holdout, the Gilsey Building. Inside was a massive lobby stretching between Broadway and Church Street. The upper stories each contained between 5,200 and 19,500 square feet (480 and 1,810 m2) of space on each floor. Work on the City Investing Building started in 1906, and it opened in 1908 with about 12 acres (49,000 m2; 520,000 sq ft) of floor area, becoming one of New York City's largest office buildings at the time. Though developed by the City Investing Company, the structure had multiple owners throughout its existence. The City Investing Building was sold to the financier Grigori Benenson (1860–1939) in 1919 and renamed the Benenson Building. After Benenson was unable to pay the mortgage, it was sold twice in the 1930s. The building was renamed 165 Broadway by 1938 and was renovated in 1941. The City Investing Building and the adjacent Singer Building were razed in 1968 to make room for One Liberty Plaza, which had more than twice the floor area as the two former buildings combined.

The American Surety Building (also known as the Bank of Tokyo Building or 100 Broadway) is an office building and early skyscraper at Pine Street and Broadway in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, across from Trinity Church. The building, designed in a Neo-Renaissance style by Bruce Price with a later expansion by Herman Lee Meader, is 388 feet (118 m) tall, with either 23 or 26 stories. It was one of Manhattan's first buildings with steel framing and curtain wall construction. The American Surety Building contains a facade of Maine granite. Its articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital, making the American Surety Building one of the earliest New York City skyscrapers to feature such a layout. The facade contains several ornamental features, including sculptural elements designed by J. Massey Rhind. In addition, the American Surety Building uses an interior skeleton of structural steel, as well as a cantilevered steel structure for its foundations. The building was erected between 1894 and 1896 as a 21-story structure, which was the second tallest building in New York City when completed. Between 1920 and 1922, an annex was built to designs by Meader, increasing the floor area and adding two stories to the building. A later tenant, the Bank of Tokyo, hired Kajima International to restore the lower 13 stories between 1973 and 1975. The American Surety Building was made a New York City designated landmark in 1995.