Equitable Building

The Equitable Building is an office skyscraper located at 120 Broadway between Pine and Cedar Streets in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The building is 555 feet tall, with 38 stories, and was the largest office building in the world by floor area upon its completion, with 1.2 million square feet of floor space. It replaced the Equitable Life Building, the previous headquarters of the Equitable Life Insurance Company, which burned down in 1912.

The skyscraper was designed by Ernest R. Graham in the neoclassical style, with Peirce Anderson as the architect-in-charge. The building's articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the components of a column, namely a base, shaft, and capital. Upon its completion, the Equitable Building was controversial because of its lack of setbacks, which in turn does not allow sunlight to reach the surrounding ground. This contributed to the adoption of the first modern building and zoning restrictions on vertical structures in Manhattan, the 1916 Zoning Resolution.

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