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49-605: Knox was Comptroller of the Currency from 1872 to 1884. An advocate of uniform currency for the national banks of the country, his portrait was featured on the obverse of the $ 100 United States national bank notes of the Series of 1902. John Jay Knox Jr. was born March 19, 1828, in Knoxboro , New York , today a part of the town of Augusta . He was a son of Sarah Ann ( née Curtis) Knox (1794–1875) and John J. Knox Sr. (1791–1876),

98-404: A balcony projecting from the 10th floor. At the time of the building's opening in 1903, it included a steam heating system, electrically powered lights, mail chutes, telephone lines, and elevators. The ground floor space, formerly the banking hall, was converted into a restaurant space, and is designed in the neoclassical style. The eastern one-fourth of the restaurant space is narrower than

147-436: A letter to indicate the region of the country in which the issuing bank was located—"N" for New England, "E" for East, "S" for South, "M" for Mid-West, "W" for West, and "P" for Pacific coast. With the advent of small-size banknotes came significant design changes for all types of paper currency including National Bank Notes. As a result of the changes, each denomination now had the same portrait and, except for minor variations,

196-582: A major stake in the Bank of the Metropolis in 1900. The Bank of the Metropolis bought the plot at the corner of 16th Street and Union Square West. The plot had previously been occupied by a Brentano's bookstore, which moved elsewhere in 1901. The bank hired Bruce Price to design a 16-story building on the slim L-shaped lot. The land for the bank was adjacent to the Decker Building, directly to

245-690: A note-issuing bank organized under the free banking law of Minnesota, but continued their office in St. Paul. By June 1861, pressures of the Civil War contributed to a devastating depreciation in the bonds used to secure notes of the Central Bank, and the Knox brothers allowed the bank to fail. Note holders were eventually paid 30 cents on the dollar for Central Bank notes. This experience significantly shaped Knox's opinion on banking. Knox became an advocate of

294-546: A prominent merchant and bank president and was himself the namesake of Knoxboro. The younger Knox was well educated and attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York , from which he graduated in 1849. Upon graduation he went to work for his father in his bank, working there as a teller for two years before moving to a bank in Syracuse, New York , where he worked for four more years. Knox gained experience and authority in

343-559: A series of further jobs in the banking industry which followed, including stops in Binghamton, New York , Norfolk, Virginia . In 1857, shortly before Minnesota was admitted to the United States, Knox and his brother, Henry M. Knox, launched their own banking house, J. Jay Knox & Co., in the city of St. Paul with the financial backing of their father. In October 1859, they purchased the Central Bank of New Ulm, Minnesota,

392-426: A string course along the bottom, and belt courses along the top. There are vertical panels between each window on the 14th and 15th floors, and palmettes and lions' heads at the top of each panel. A copper cornice runs atop the 16th floor. Along both facades, there are various recessions in the facade where limestone balconies jut out. The most prominent is on the 9-bay section of the southern facade, which contains

441-600: A tripartite facade design and neoclassical elements. After the Bank of the Metropolis merged into the Bank of Manhattan in 1918, the building continued to be used as an office tower. The upper stories were converted for residential use in 1976, while the ground level was later used as a restaurant. The Bank of the Metropolis building was designated a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1988, and

490-634: A withdrawal. By the mid-1890s, the Bank of the Metropolis had $ 6 million in deposits. At the time, Union Square was being developed with such buildings as the Decker Building at 33 Union Square West, near the corner with 16th Street, and the Century Building at 33 East 17th Street , on the northern side of the park. By the beginning of the 20th century, the bank's board of directors included Louis Comfort Tiffany and businessman Charles Scribner II . The National City Bank acquired

539-619: The Federal Reserve Bank Notes . These were printed using National Bank Note plates with slight design changes. Both say "National Currency", but have different issuers. National Bank Notes were retired as a currency type by the U.S. government in the 1930s during the Great Depression as currency in the U.S. was consolidated into Federal Reserve Notes , United States Notes , and silver certificates ; privately issued banknotes were eliminated. The passage of

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588-751: The Gold Reserve Act created an accounting gain for the Treasury, part of which was used to provide funds to retire all bonds against which National Banks Notes could be issued. Sometimes these notes are called "hometown" notes, with their popularity deriving from the wide range of towns and cities that issued them. Among paper money hobbyists, especially in the U.S., these notes are avidly studied and collected. Some were issued in large numbers and remain inexpensive to collectors today. Others associated with rare banks, towns, states and combinations thereof and are quite valuable. A note from Walla Walla, in what

637-673: The New Orleans Mint — the largest such misappropriation in US government history up to that time. Knox was made Deputy Comptroller of the Currency in 1867. In that capacity in April 1870, Knox prepared a 100-page report codifying the mint and coinage laws of the United States. This was followed in June 1870 with another report of similar length, collecting the views of mint employees and financial experts and providing for legislation to eliminate

686-547: The New York City Subway 's 14th Street–Union Square station , which at the time was under construction. The bank building was occupied by several office tenants, including architecture firm Jackson, Rosencrans & Caufield; architect Charles B. Meyers; the Employing Lithographers' Association; engineering firm W. L. Fleischer & Co.; and Jewish organizations. The Bank of the Metropolis

735-419: The foundation of the Decker Building had to be underpinned because the foundation of that building was not located in solid rock. In August 1902, four construction workers were injured when one of the derricks broke. When the building was completed in 1903, it had cost $ 500,000 in total. Pitman's Journal of Commercial Education, one of the building's first tenants, praised the amenities and its proximity to

784-469: The silver dollar from circulation. Knox's proposal was passed into law after a few amendments as the Coinage Act of 1873 — an event which triggered a rapid fall in the price of silver and which ushered in an era of bitter currency debate which dominated the political landscape for the better part of three decades. President Ulysses S. Grant promoted Knox to Comptroller of the Currency in 1872. He

833-472: The $ 3.3 million conversion project. By 1979, the residential conversion had been completed: most of the building was used as artists' lofts , while four floors were being used as dormitory space for the Parsons School of Design . In 1980 the former banking room at the ground floor became a club called Zippers, under the direction of Lynn Barclay. The space then became a restaurant named Metropolis in

882-572: The Metropolis building is located on a slim L-shaped plot. It has 32.5 feet (9.9 m) of frontage on Union Square West, to the east, and 175 feet (53 m) on 16th Street, to the south. At the western end of the 16th Street facade, the bank contains a 92-foot (28 m) deep wing. This wing runs adjacent to the four buildings at 33-39 Union Square West, and connects back to the Hartford Building at Broadway and 17th Street. The 32.5-foot-wide section on Union Square West exists because

931-489: The Metropolis was initially located at 31 Union Square West, at the site of the present bank building. At the time, most businesses were located in Lower Manhattan . The 1893 King's Handbook to New York City described it as a "flourishing outgrowth of the movement of business" further uptown. The bank moved twice during the 19th century: to 17 Union Square West in 1877, and to 29 Union Square West in 1888. During

980-436: The bank's cashier and president, and were individually signed by those officers prior to issuing the note. Notes were sent to the bank by the Treasury and typically signed as uncut sheets, so that the top edge of some notes show the lower part of a signature (such as the descender of a "y" or "j") from the note above it. Notes were often cut apart with scissors, so that the top and bottom edges of notes can be uneven and cut into

1029-495: The banks but oversight of issuing banks often was lax and encouraged wildcat banking , in which fraudulent institutions issued worthless banknotes. During the Civil War, in 1863, the National Banking Act established a system of National Banks which were empowered to issue National Bank Notes subject to federal oversight. The chartering of banks and administrative control over the issuance of National Bank Notes were

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1078-456: The borders of the design. Most, but not all, large size national banknotes showed the charter number of the issuing bank on the obverse. In some cases the charter number was printed once, but typically the charter number appeared twice. The issuing bank's charter number was carefully positioned inside the engraved border, as well as overprinted elsewhere on the obverse. To aid Treasury workers in sorting banknotes, later large size notes also showed

1127-603: The building appears as a slab rising from the street. On the south and east facades, the 16-story building is broken up into three horizontal layers of articulation —a 2-story base with rusticated blocks, a 9-story tower, and a 3-story top section—with one "transition" story between each layer. The tripartite articulation serves a more aesthetic than functional purpose. The north and west facades consist of plain brick. The eastern facade on Union Square West contains three vertical architectural bays. A curved, slightly projecting portico supported by two Ionic columns takes up

1176-509: The federal government. National Bank Notes were retired as a currency type by the U.S. government in the 1930s, when U.S. currency was consolidated into Federal Reserve Notes , United States Notes , and silver certificates . Prior to the American Civil War , state banks and chartered private banks issued their own banknotes. Privately issued banknotes were nominally backed by specie ( hard money ) or financial securities held by

1225-424: The first decades of the bank's existence, The New York Times described three criminal incidents involving the bank. In 1879, a nighttime guard went to a saloon to drink, leaving the bank without any protection, though no burglaries were reported during that time. A man was caught depositing forged bonds at the bank during the early 1880s, and a thief was arrested in 1889 after robbing a client who had just made

1274-506: The ground floor, with a window to the left of the centrally-positioned banking entrance, and a door to the upper floors to the right. A journal article in 1916 said of prominent corner-lot bank locations that "the advantage [...] is generally appreciated", an observation that was made in the Landmarks Preservation Commission's report about the building. The Bank of the Metropolis's facade is designed so that

1323-417: The issuing bank's charter number was omitted from the engraved border, and now simply overprinted in dark ink. In the case of the last issues of small size National Bank Notes, referred to as Type 2 notes, the charter number also appeared twice in brown ink in line with the note's serial numbers. Small size National Bank Notes look very similar to, but are distinctly different from, the emergency 1933 issue of

1372-481: The issuing bank's national charter number as well as the serial number assigned to the note by that bank. Low serial-numbered notes were often withdrawn as souvenirs by the bank officers who signed them. Except for the last few years of issue, all of the National Bank Notes were large-sized. Through much of their earlier history of issue, national banknotes used designs in which the issuing bank's name

1421-575: The longest serving officer in that department. Knox was married to Caroline Elizabeth Todd (1847–1922), a daughter of Elizabeth Irving (née Gilliss) Todd and William Balch Todd, a director of the Bank of the Metropolis . Together, they were the parents of: Knox died at his home in New York City on February 9, 1892. He was 63 years old at the time of his death and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington. His widow died in 1922 while she

1470-489: The mid-late 1980's. It was upscale but casual and attracted a young, hip crowd. Soon after the restaurant opened, the owners opened a small dance club in the basement. The restaurant changed hands in 1996 and was re-opened as the Blue Water Grill. The restaurant closed in 2019 due to rising rents. The Bank of the Metropolis building is a Renaissance Revival structure with a facade made of limestone . Price

1519-597: The north at 33 Union Square West, which had unsuccessfully attempted to sell the 32.5-foot-wide (9.9 m) corner lot that the new bank building was to occupy. The bank started ordering stone for the new building in November 1901, and Price submitted his plans to the New York City Department of Buildings the next month. The structure was built by the George A. Fuller Company. During construction,

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1568-526: The original square-framed windows there. These arched windows were installed after the ground level was converted into a restaurant. On both the south and east facades, the third story contains square-framed windows and projecting courses at the top and bottom. The fourth through 12th stories make up the "tower" section of the bank building, and are relatively flat, except for spandrels between each floor, which are embellished with lions. The 13th floor contains scrolled corbels between each set of windows,

1617-476: The owner of the Decker Building could not sell the corner lot along 16th Street. The L-shaped form was also present in the International Bank and Trust Company Building. The main entrance is on the narrow Union Square West facade, since Union Square was a coveted address at the time of the building's construction. The main entrance was designed to be symmetrical and emphasize the banking space on

1666-650: The responsibility of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency . A 2 percent tax on state bank notes was authorized in 1864 to speed conversion to the new system, only to be increased the next year to 10 percent, then 20 percent. From 1863 to 1935, National Bank Notes were issued by banks throughout the country and in US territories. Banks with a federal charter would deposit bonds in the US Treasury. The banks then could issue banknotes worth up to 90 percent of

1715-405: The rest. The north side wall is made of white marble on the bottom half and plaster on the top half. Architraves run across the coffered ceiling. A mezzanine is located above the westernmost portion of the restaurant space. The western part of the ground floor is separated from the restaurant by a partition. A marble-lined staircase close to the main entrance leads to a basement. To the north of

1764-489: The restaurant, on the eastern end is the office building lobby. A curving staircase leading upstairs is located at the west end of the lobby. Elevators are located within two arches of a three-arched arcade on the northern wall, while the lobby's southern wall is made of veined marble. The office building lobby is also coffered, but the coffers are smaller than in the restaurant space. The upper floors, formerly office space, were converted into residential units. Almost none of

1813-403: The same decorative features that would characterize all types of United States currency from the late 1920s to the early 1990s. In the case of National Bank Notes, the elaborate rendition of the bank's name was omitted from the engraved design with the change to small-size notes, and instead was now simply over-stamped in black ink, just above the engraved lettering of the promise-to-pay. Similarly,

1862-673: The service of the Treasury Department in 1863. Working in the Treasury Department throughout the closing years of the American Civil War , in 1866 Knox was put in charge of the Mint and Coinage Correspondence for that department. He authored a report on the San Francisco Mint in 1866 and later in that same year discovered a $ 1.1 million misappropriation of funds in a similar report on the activities of

1911-566: The system of national banks proposed by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase and contributed ideas to the national bank debate, advocating safe and convertible notes of a uniform type for all national banks, backed by the guarantee of government bonds. He authored two influential articles on the matter, published in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine in 1861 and 1862, which gained the notice of Secretary Chase. Chase would bring Knox into

1960-472: The total number of notes of that series and denomination issued by all banks. The bank serial number indicated the number of notes of that series and denomination issued only by that bank. Large size notes also bore four signatures. Two signatures were those of the Register of the Treasury and Treasurer of the United States and were printed as part of the note's design. The other two signatures were those of

2009-410: The two base stories, and a carved plaque reading "Bank of the Metropolis" is located at the top of the portico. On either side of the portico are several rows of beveled masonry blocks. The southern facade on 16th Street contains 18 bays, split up into sections of 3, 3, 9, and 3 bays from west to east. At the ground level of the 16th Street facade, there are several wide, arched windows, which replaced

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2058-552: The value of the bonds. The federal government would back the value of the notes—the issuance of which created a demand for the government bonds needed to back them. The program was a form of monetization of the Federal debt. Bonds eligible as collateral for posting to the Treasury were said to have "circulation privilege" and the interest they bore provided seigniorage to the National Banks. Each National Bank Note bore

2107-859: Was President of the Women's Board of the Babies Hospital . National bank note National Bank Notes were United States currency banknotes issued by National Banks chartered by the United States Government . The notes were usually backed by United States bonds the bank deposited with the United States Treasury . In addition, banks were required to maintain a redemption fund amounting to five percent of any outstanding note balance, in gold or "lawful money." The notes were not legal tender in general, but were satisfactory for nearly all payments to and by

2156-502: Was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. Starting in the 1870s, the area surrounding Union Square Park became populated with hotels, theaters, and commercial enterprises. The Bank of the Metropolis was established on June 1, 1871, to serve the merchants around Union Square. The businessman William Steinway , of Steinway & Sons , was among the bank's founding board of directors. The Bank of

2205-531: Was merged into the Bank of Manhattan in 1918, though the Union Square West building continued to be used as a banking location. Two years later, the building was sold to Dora Kuch for $ 2 million. The building remained relatively unchanged until 1975, when developer David Teitelbaum was granted a zoning variance to turn the upper-floor offices into 145 residences. These plans temporarily stalled in 1976 because several banks did not want to finance

2254-546: Was particularly attached to designing skyscrapers in three parts, mirroring the structure of classical columns , and the building reflects this base-shaft-capital concept. The tripartite design and the use of neoclassical elements are also present in Price's earlier buildings, including the American Surety Building (1896) and the demolished International Bank and Trust Company Building (1899). The Bank of

2303-439: Was prominently displayed, rather than "The United States Of America". One design used for many years featured a portrait on the obverse, near the left edge, and the bank's name printed in prominent shaded type in the middle. The historical figures seen on these notes usually were different from those on the same denominations of paper currency today. Large-size notes bore two serial numbers. The Treasury serial number indicated

2352-601: Was reappointed to a second 5-year term by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877, and to a third term by President Chester A. Arthur in 1882. On May 1, 1884, Knox resigned his post in order to become president of the National Bank of the Republic in New York City . At the time of his resignation he had served 17 years in the Comptroller's office as part of almost 22 years in the Treasury Department, making him

2401-621: Was then Washington Territory , sold for $ 161,000 in a June 2010 sale at Heritage Auctions . Bank of the Metropolis The Bank of the Metropolis was a bank in New York City that operated between 1871 and 1918. The bank was originally located at several addresses around Union Square in Manhattan before finally moving to 31 Union Square West , a 16-story Renaissance Revival building designed by Bruce Price and built between 1902 and 1903. The bank building uses

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