Corn Exchange Building/ Former Mount Morris Bank

The building at the northwest corner of E. 125th St. and Park Avenue is the Corn Exchange Building, built in 1883 to 1884 and enlarged in 1889 to 1890. The original name of the Queen Anne/ Romanesque Revival structure was the Mount Morris Bank Building. The ground floor banking space was topped by apartments originally that later became office space. Mount Morris became part of the Corn Exchange Bank in 1913; the bank operated here until the mid-1960s. Abandoned, almost destroyed by fire and condemned, the structure was rebuilt in the mid-2010s and now offers ground floor commercial space below six floors of office space. Next door is the Metro-North (formerly New York Central Railroad) 125th Street Station.

Mount Morris Bank was founded in 1880 and rented space at 133 E. 125th Street until their new building down the street was ready in 1884. The original architect for the former Mount Morris Bank building was Lamb & Rich. Hugh Lamb (1849-1903) was born in Scotland; Charles A. Rich (1855-1943) was a Massachusetts native. Their firm designed the original buildings on the Barnard College Campus in the 1890s, as well as the Harlem Club (1889) and Harlem Free Library (1892).

The red brick building with a sandstone base and terra cotta details was enlarged by doubling the width along the Park Avenue (east) side in 1889 to 1890. The same architectural firm designed the Park Avenue facade expansion, in which the galvanized iron oriel and dormer windows were removed, new windows with iron balconies were installed, and the roofline became a stepped gable type. Mount Morris Bank was the largest bank in Harlem by 1894, with more depositors than the other three banks combined. The front stoops and stairs, which extended onto the public sidewalk, were removed in another renovation in 1912 when new entryways were built; the main entrance to the banking hall is by the street corner.

The original layout featured the Mount Morris Bank on the ground floor with "French flat" apartments on the four floors above. A French flat was classified by the city as having multiple dwellings with private baths and toilets. The upper floors - originally called "The Morris" - were converted into office space in the early twentieth century. The basement held the Mount Morris Safe Deposit Company, an affiliated business and the actual owner of the building; the basement vaults were accessed through a round-arched, below-grade entrance near the center of the E. 125th Street side. Corn Exchange Bank operated their Mount Morris Branch from the building after the 1913 merger with Mount Morris Bank. Corn Exchange was founded by a group of New York City merchants in 1853 and was the first bank in the city to open up branch locations, starting in 1899. Mount Morris was the ninth of eleven banks that merged with Corn Exchange; Corn Exchange merged with Chemical Bank in 1954. After Chemical Bank moved out in the mid-1960s, the E. 125th Street building was leased to commercial tenants and the Samuel Temple Church of God in Christ. The building was acquired by the City of New York in 1972 and was abandoned for decades; the upper floors were lost to fire and the building was condemned and almost demolished before it was rescued and rebuilt in the 2010s.

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the Corn Exchange Building a city landmark in 1993. In 2013 the LPC approved plans to rebuild the abandoned, deteriorated ruins in a design that interprets instead of duplicating the original interior design. The reopened Corn Exchange Building offers 32,000 square feet of office space; 3,000 square feet of ground floor retail; and 2,000 square feet of cellar accessory retail with full height ceilings. The Corn Exchange Building is topped by a rooftop terrace.

Anonymous. "A Bank's Close Call." The Evening World (New York) December 26th 1894. 6 O'Clock Extra ed, 3-3.

Dolkart, Andrew Scott. Pearson, Marjorie. Mount Morris Bank Building, 81-85 E. 125th Street, Manhattan, Landmark Designation Report LP-1839. New York City Landmarks. New York, NY. New York City Government, 1993.

NYC Historic Districts Council. Former Mount Morris Bank Building, Later the Corn Exchange Bank Mount Morris Branch, Six to Celebrate. Accessed December 7th 2021. https://6tocelebrate.org/site/former-mount-morris-bank-building-later-the-corn-exchange-bank-mount-morris-branch/.