Former Centerbank, 1906
Gordon, Tracy and Swartwout, architects
Northeast corner of Church and Crown Streets
There are some buildings that you worry about. This one was empty long enough that it seemed only a matter of time before some developer would return it to dust. Instead, its exterior has recently been cleaned, which one assumes is not the usual prelude to razing, although the trompe l’oeil counter facade that was once to be found on the rear wall is now vanished.
There was an art to banks, once. But it was in service to a civic illusion. The Classical orders were used to legitimate a system of economic inequity, purely by reference to elevated space. These were public buildings (like the Federal Court of 1913 just three blocks further north on Church Street which once contained a post office), but access was granted as a means of communicating the locales of power. One could enter, but only in awe. This relationship is brought to its absurd conclusion in the design for the Book and Snake secret society on the corner of High and Grove. Here you find a mausoleum with an Ionic porch, the single visible entry like Death’s door.
The recent film Public Enemies makes something of that traditional question as to whether it is a greater crime to rob a bank or to open one. In several scenes, ornate neoclassical interiors are turned into containers for violence by both bankers and thieves. Perhaps only the shabby upstairs office of George Bailey’s Building and Loan in It’s A Wonderful Life comes close to the communal wonder that we dreamed our banks might be, but there was no Corinthian detail to its metal scissor front gate.
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