Adams Express Building

The Adams Express Building is an office building at 61 Broadway in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The building's primary frontage is on 57–61 Broadway, with additional frontage along 33–41 Trinity Place. Architect Francis Kimball designed the 32-story building for the Adams Express Company. Construction began in 1912 at which point the cost was estimated at $2,000,000 (equivalent to $66,724,138 in 2025). Upon completion in 1914, the building was the seventh tallest structure in Manhattan.

The building contains 3,300 tons of steel and over a million square feet of architectural terracotta. The New York Times described the architectural style as "Florentine" below the fifth floor, and "severely simple" above. Another critic called the style "utterly utilitarian," but the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission identified the architecture as palazzo. An entrance was constructed to the New York City Subway's Wall Street station, underneath Broadway, but was later closed.

The Adams Express Company occupied part of the Pinkerton Building at 57–59 Broadway. In 1903, there was discussion of combining 57–61 Broadway with an adjacent property occupied by American Express and Wells Fargo, and building one large building for the three companies. This did not happen, and American Express's adjacent building at 65 Broadway was completed in 1917. A 1904 fire that began in the basement of the Morris Building at 63 Broadway, damaged the Pinkerton and other buildings on the block. Twenty-four engines and six hook and ladder companies responded. The Fire Department of New York recorded that the Adams Express Company building was destroyed, but Adams Express continued to occupy the site. By 1906, Adams Express was planning a new, fireproof building to be constructed on the site of the Pinkerton Building.

Building data from Wikidata (CC0); heights normalised. Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).