2 Gold Street
2 Gold Street - an overgrown, undistinguished, 650,000-square-foot, $200+ million, 51-story residential tower with 500 to 600 units. Nothing special.
However, at 211 and 213 Pearl Street were a pair of plain brick Greek Revival structures. 211 Pearl was a counting house built in 1831 by William Colgate, whose soap business would later become the Colgate-Polmolive company. The building was probably designed by Ithiel Town, who founded one of New York's first architectural firms in 1829 and introduced Greek Revival to New York City. Town and his partner Alexander Jackson Davis were also responsible for Federal Hall.
The entire block was quietly purchased in the early 2000s for the 2 Gold St. development, thus circumventing any attempts to landmark the surviving buildings. However, because the structure was financed in part with post-9/11 Liberty Bonds, elected officials arranged to have the facades of the buildings preserved, a practice that has become known as "facadicide."
The full story of the rise and extended fall of 211 Pearl was covered in a nice article in the New Yorker in 2008, Mystery on Pearl Street
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2 Gold Street
2 Gold Street
2 Gold Street
2 Gold Street
2 Gold Street
2 Gold Street
2 Gold Street
2 Gold Street
2 Gold Street
2 Gold Street