1960Manhattan, New YorkFinancial

One Chase Manhattan Plaza (now 28 Liberty Street)

A major postwar turning point: corporate Modernism replacing the fine-grained old Financial District — exactly the New York cycle the Fran Lebowitz story captures.

One Chase Manhattan Plaza, now 28 Liberty Street, photographed in 2007.

Current view · 2007 · Photo: Michael · CC BY 2.0 · Source

01The story

Why this project matters

Project identity: Verified
Kelly connection: Family source
Masonry scope: Probable

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Chase Manhattan Bank — 1960

Transcription: Chase Manhattan Bank — 1960

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Entry

KM-033

Sheet

1 of two

As written

“Chase Manhattan Bank — 1960”

The city closed a block of Cedar Street so Chase could create its 2.5-acre superblock; the tower rose from 1957–61 and the plaza followed through 1964.

Why it matters

A near-perfect New York lifecycle: the city altered its street grid to help build a modern corporate superblock, and half a century later landmarked the result.

02What Kelly did

What Kelly did here

Kelly connection

Family source

Scope confidence

Probable

Likely: most plausibly interior CMU/block at the central core, shafts, service rooms and fire-rated partitions, plus localized plaza/support masonry if specified. Do not attribute the tower's exterior skin to Kelly: SOM describes One Chase Manhattan Plaza as clad in aluminum and tinted glass.

This scope is recorded as probable, not documented. It is a disciplined reading of the building and the trade practice of the period, not a contract-level record of Kelly’s work.

03Who built it