{"nrhp_refnum":"03000848","name":"Wallace Building","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"56-58 Pine St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"New York","county":"Manhattan","state":"NY","lat":40.706840036000074,"lon":-74.00836863299998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2003-08-28","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A twelve-story Romanesque Revival office building at 56-58 Pine Street in Manhattan's Financial District, with a rear facade on Cedar Street, completed in 1894 and given a three-story addition in 1919.","why_significant":"The building is argued to be an architecturally distinguished late nineteenth-century skyscraper and one of the best surviving examples of the Romanesque Revival style in a tall building. It is also one of the few surviving first-generation steel-skeleton skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan. Its facades are notable for varied materials and exceptional Byzantine-style carved stone and terra-cotta ornament.","narrative":"Rising twelve stories on Pine Street in Manhattan's Financial District, this 1894 building was put up by developer James G. Wallace as a speculative office block for insurance-related tenants. Architect Oswald Wirz, Wallace's in-house designer, gave it a Romanesque Revival character, using red sandstone, pink brick and matching terra cotta. The Pine Street base features round arches on clustered granite colonnettes and richly carved Byzantine-style vines, fish, and human and monster heads. Its steel-skeleton frame made a tall building feasible on a narrow lot, and it was once the tallest structure along this stretch of Pine and Cedar streets. A three-story addition was made in 1919 while the building was owned by a distilling company. Most of its early skyscraper neighbors were later demolished, but this one survives with its exterior largely intact. Inside, original features were lost, and the building became an extended-stay hotel between 1999 and 2000. It is valued as an example of early skyscraper design and fine ornament.","period_of_significance":"1893-1919","architect_builder":"Wirz, Oscar; Kaufman & Levine","architectural_style":"Late Victorian/Romanesque Revival","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Exterior retains a very high degree of integrity; interiors were altered, and the building was converted to an extended-stay hotel in 1999-2000.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:53.760886-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/03000848.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/03000848/fc23f38660-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/03000848/fc23f38660-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Beyond My Ken","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:56_Pine_Street.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Beyond My Ken</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:56_Pine_Street.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"07000063","name":"Wall Street Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/new-york/wall-street-historic-district-07000063/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75320045","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/56_Pine_Street","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7962757"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/manhattan/wallace-building-03000848/"}