en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturers_Trust_Company_Building
3 corrections found
The glass measures 4 inches (100 mm) thick
The building’s glass was reported at about half an inch thick, not 4 inches.
Full reasoning
A contemporaneous 1954 New Yorker report on the building says of the facade glazing: “The glass is half an inch thick.” That directly contradicts the article’s claim that the glass was 4 inches thick. A 4-inch-thick facade pane would also be wildly out of line with the same source’s description of the mezzanine panes as large but conventional plate-glass units.
So the thickness value in the article appears to be an error by a factor of eight.
1 source
- Showcase | The New Yorker
Information such as that the bank... had twenty-two panes of glass on the second-floor mezzanine... each of them ten feet wide by twenty-two feet high and weighing fifteen hundred pounds. (The glass is half an inch thick and isn't likely to break, no matter what hits it.)
The walls were tinted with a thin gold layer to reduce glare.
Sources describe the facade glass as clear, not gold-tinted; the gold-tinted element was interior Fiberglas curtains.
Full reasoning
This sentence conflicts with both official landmark documentation and a contemporaneous description of the building.
- The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission’s designation report says Bunshaft used clear rather than tinted glass for the building because neighboring skyscrapers reduced direct light.
- A 1954 New Yorker article likewise describes the gold-colored element not as the glass wall itself, but as “gold-tinted Fiberglas curtains” hanging at the ground-floor and mezzanine non-windows.
So the article appears to have conflated the clear facade glass with the separate gold-tinted interior curtain system.
2 sources
- (Former) Manufacturers Trust Company Building (now Chase Bank Building) – New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
Because Manufacturers Trust was partially shielded from direct light by taller, surrounding buildings, Bunshaft used clear rather than tinted glass; this... allowed him to achieve... the transparent building.
- Showcase | The New Yorker
We learned, too, that the gold-tinted Fiberglas curtains, thirtythree feet high, that hang at the ground-floor and mezzanine non-windows are so heavy that they must be drawn open and shut by electric motors.
Excluding bank clients, the building had accommodated 100,000 visitors by 1960, with an average of 400 per month.
An official landmark report says nearly 100,000 people had visited by 1957, not by 1960; that also makes the stated average of 400 per month far too low.
Full reasoning
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission’s interior designation report states that tours were offered to the public and that by 1957 nearly 100,000 people had visited the building. That directly conflicts with this article’s statement that 100,000 visitors had been reached only by 1960.
The monthly average in the article is also inconsistent with the documented total. If nearly 100,000 visitors had already come by 1957, the average up to that point was on the order of thousands per month, not 400 per month. This looks like a misdated and miscomputed visitor statistic.
1 source
- Manufacturers Trust Company Building Interior – New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
Tours were offered to the public and by 1957 nearly 100,000 people had visited.