30 Wall Street

The land occupied by 30 Wall Street was originally the site of the Verplanck mansion until the property was sold to the Bank of the United States in 1822 when the Samuel Verplanck Mansion was demolished. 

The Assay Office Building was designed and built by Martin E. Thompson in 1824 as the New York branch of the Bank of the United States. 

The Branch Bank of the United States operated in the location until the branch closure in 1837. Later, the building was used by the Bank of the State of New York 

The building functioned as the U.S. Assay Office. The building was sold to the United States government to be used as an assay office, at which the gold from California or elsewhere may be assayed.

U.S. Assay Office moved out. The original building was showing serious structural problems and outgrowing its usefulness. Before the scheduled demolition, the Georgian facade was carefully stripped away from the building and later re-purposed as the entrance for the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Saved from destruction by I. N. Phelps Stokes, who paid to have it dismantled and Robert de Forest, President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Renovation work began on a new three-story limestone structure, which still stands today, to become the new United States Assay Office. 

The facade was re-erected as part of the facade of the museum's American Wing.

Seamen's Bank for Savings acquired the building and added a tower that rises to 12-stories. A utilitarian 12-story addition was added onto the top of the restrained Italian Renaissance style former United States Assay Office in the 1950s. Note the very finely sculpted frieze running beneath the cornice of the first story, as well as the graceful iron-work. ^[1]

The building was later sold again in 1986. Today the first two floors are now used for various different types of corporate and private events.