States Assay Office at Nos. 30 and 32 Wall Street, New York (See Plate 8):

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

WASHINGTON.

December 12, 1912.

Hon. GEORGE MCANENY, New York, N. Y.:

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT.- Appreciating the fact that the Federal Government contemplates removing the old Assay Office Building on Wall Street, it occurred to me to inquire from the Treasury Department regarding the disposition of the building, with the result that I am in receipt of the enclosed letter from the Hon. Sherman Allen, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, giving a history of the building. In view of the fact that you are the custodian of public buildings which are the property of the City of New York in Manhattan, I am sending you Mr. Allen's letter, and hope you may deem it proper to have the City avail itself of the kind offer of the Federal Government to present the front of this building to the City so that it might be used in the construction of some other building in Manhattan, either as property of the City or some historical society. Would be glad to take the matter up here with the authorities if you wish.

Sincerely yours,

WILLIAM M. CALDER.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT.

WASHINGTON.

December 11, 1912.

Honorable WILLIAM M. CALDER, U. S. House of Representatives: MY DEAR MR. CALDER. In reply to your inquiry, I beg to advise that no decision has been reached as to what disposition should be made of the old Assay Office Building now located at 30 and 32 Wall Street, New York City, but as the Department is about to erect a new building for the Assay Office on the site, this question should be settled in the very near future.

It is the oldest building on Wall Street, the only other buildings on the street which have remained unchanged since 1850 being the Sub-Treasury and Trinity Church. The Assay Office is of much historical and architectural interest, and is said to be one of the best examples of architecture of its period in New York, being somewhat similar to that of the old City Hall.

The facade of the building is a dull gray so-called marble, a durable stone, as shown by its present condition after all these years in service. The stone was quarried in Westchester County, N. Y., probably at or near Tuckahoe, where such quarries are still worked. The sides and back walls of the building are of brick and in bad condition. The interior of the building is also in a dilapidated condition, so that the front wall is the only portion of the building worth saving.

Unless the City or some historical or other society desires to take the old building, it will have to be torn down to make way for the new Assay Office and large gold vault. The front wall could be removed to some other location and restored in connection with some branch library or similar building.

The building was designed and erected in 1823, by Martin E. Thompson, for the New York Branch of the Bank of the United States. Mr. Thompson was later architect of the Merchants' Exchange Building* which was afterward used by the United States as a Custom House and vacated in 1907.

Practically the entire lower floor of the new building must be so constructed as to serve as the principal gold reserve vault of the Government in New York. It is also necessary to construct the new building several stories higher than the old building. An effort was made to find a way to utilize the facade of the old building in the new structure, but this could not be done as the proportions of the old structure would not harmonize in the new. Yours very truly, SHERMAN ALLEN,

Assistant Secretary.

To the facts contained in the foregoing letter may be added the following: After the United States Bank went out of existence during President Jackson's term the building was used for many years by the Bank of the State of New York, and that Bank sold it to the United States Government in 1854 for $530,000. For about twenty years after that the Government did not require the use of the entire building, and portions of it were leased for bank

*The Merchants' Exchange referred to in the foregoing letter stood on the south side of Wall Street between William and Hanover Streets. It was erected in 1827 and destroyed in the fire of 1835. In 1842 another Exchange was built on the same site and was occupied by the Stock Exchange until 1854. In 1863 the United States Government bought it and used it as a Custom House for thirty-six years. In 1899 the National City Bank bought it and now occupies the remodeled building.

ing offices. During the Civil War, Henry Clews & Co. and Jay Cooke had offices there.

For several years the condition of the Assay Office has been indicated by the heavy beams which have been placed across the little alley separating it from the Sub-Treasury, for the purpose of shoring up the westerly wall of the old structure. In 1911, the Wall Street front was vacated by the staff, and the artistic facade now presents an unattractive appearance. Some of the panes of glass in the windows are broken and in places the walls show a tendency to bulge in a very dangerous manner.

In 1911 Congress passed a law providing for the remodeling of the Assay Office and the installation of vaults, but after the passage of the act the Secretary of the Treasury, the Hon. Wayne MacVeagh, became convinced that the old building could not be remodeled advantageously and that an entire new building was necessary. On February 14, 1913, Secretary MacVeagh appealed to Congress by letter for authority to construct an entirely new Assay Office, as the new vaults cannot be built in the old building without endangering the walls of surrounding structures. He asked Congress to provide that the act of 1911, which authorized the rebuilding of the Wall Street front of the building at a cost not exceeding $270,000, be amended so as to provide that the Wall Street section of the building be razed and a new structure. erected of modern fire-proof construction. He also asked for authority to make such disposition, by gift or otherwise, as he might deem proper, of the present Wall Street facade. The cost of the new building and vaults will be about $322,000.

So far as the preservation of the facade of the old building is concerned, the Trustees of this Society have concluded that the building does not possess enough historic or artistic interest to warrant a recommendation for its preservation.

Elements of Historic Value in a Building.

The question of the disposition of the facade of the Assay Office aroused an interesting discussion in the newspapers about the first of December, 1912, as to what makes a building "historic." An officer of this Society had been quoted as saying that the Assay Office was not historic as it was not yet a century old;

but, owing to the limitations of newspaper space, the reporter had omitted the qualifying remarks accompanying that expression and therefore did not fairly represent the attitude of this Society on the general subject.

There are two elements, either or both of which may make a building historic, namely time and notable use. If our English language were as plastic as the German we might coin two words such as "time-historic" and "use-historic " use-historic" to express different qualities of the historical character of a building. While both of these elements of time and use are often present in the same object, yet they are independent criterions and either alone may make a building historic. There are certain events which by common consent we recognize as extraordinary when they occur and which are historic without the lapse of time. Thus, we shall recognize the opening of the Panama Canal as an epoch-marking event, and the vessel which first passes from occan to ocean will become historic at once, being referred to in figures of speech and otherwise as having performed an extraordinary act. The building in which a man is born may become historic within the short period of his lifetime if he becomes an historic character. Illusstrations of this sort might be multiplied indefinitely, and we could mention several buildings in town of no great age which might properly be called historic.

But when a landmark has not thus become historic through notable use, and when the age element only is involved, it takes a considerable lapse of time in our estimation to make it historic; but even that period depends largely on surrounding cireumstances. The period should be long enough to cause people to connote the building with a given epoch or stage of evolution, or with surrounding changes, or to have used it as a landmark, etc. The architectural appearance is an interesting but different phase of the subject. It may or may not be related to the history of the building.

The Assay Office has not had such notable use as to make it historic in the "use" sense, and it is not old enough to make it historic in the "time ""

sense.

For a few years past this Society has been preparing a catalogue of historical sites, landmarks and place-names in and around New York, and already has several thousand titles. When this work

was begun, the compiler set a hundred years as a limit at which a thing became historical, but the impossibility of such an arbitrary distinction soon became apparent for the reasons above expressed.

CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK.

Intrusion of Lenox Library Prevented.

In the history of Central Park, New York City, in our Report for 1911, we devoted a chapter to the proposed encroachments and malversions of the park and showed how necessary it was to be eternally vigilant in order to prevent all sorts of invasions and innovations. The year 1912 afforded a fresh illustration of this truth in the proposal to place in Central Park the abandoned Lenox Library Building which stands on the east side of Fifth Avenue between 70th and 71st Streets. The Lenox Library was the gift to the City of New York by the late James Lenox, who gave the land, erected a massive building which cost over $1,000,000, installed in it a superb collection of books and works of art, and endowed it with nearly a quarter of a million dollars. The Library was incorporated in 1879. The building, which was begun in that year, was opened to the public in January, 1877. It has a frontage of 192 feet in Fifth Avenue and 114 on each of the side streets. In 1895 the Lenox Library was united corporately with the Astor Library and the Tilden bequest under the title of "New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations." (See pp. 317-355 of our last Annual Report.) In 1911, when the new Public Library Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street was opened, the Lenox Library Building was abandoned and the building and site were bought by Mr. Henry Frick at a price publicly reported to have been $2,600,000, with a view to removing the building and erecting a residence on the ground. Thereupon, Mr. Frick's architects, Carrere & Hastings, suggested to Mr. Frick that he give the building to the City.* Under date of May 27, 1912, Mr. Frick wrote to Mayor Gaynor the following letter:

* Statement in New York Times, June 21, 1912.