40 Wall Street

This 927-foot tall, 71 story skyscraper was erected in an unprecedented twelve months beginning in May, 1929, and became the second tallest building in the world. The contractors, Starrett Brothers & Eken, went on to erect the Empire State Building.

40 Wall Street was expected to be the world's tallest building when it was planned, and it was built in less than one year. Tallest in the world from April to May 27, 1930. However, it lost the "race to the top" to the Chrysler Building.

The Manhattan Company eventually merged into Chase Manhattan Bank and moved the combined bank headquarters to 20 Pine Street. The Building has had an interesting collection of owners. Before it became part of Donald Trump's real estate portfolio in 1995 it was previously owned by the Joseph and Ralph Bernstein who were fronting money for Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Trump himself gave multiple conflicting reports of the buildings net worth describing it as anywhere from $100 million to $1 billion with equally varying assessments of his investment.