"...The bank is a glass box, minimally interrupted by thin, metal-covered mullions. The curtain wall is made of clear glass because heat-resistant glass did not exist then in the sizes needed....The panes are the largest used up to that time—10 feet wide, 22 feet high, and a half-inch thick, each weighing 1,500 pounds. The cantilevered second floor of the exterior wall, which therefore looks as if it encloses one 40-foot-high space. Planting boxes form a protective parapet at the edge of the cantilevered floor. The 13,000 square feet of glass are set into rectangular polished aluminum mullions of a small cross section made possible because they and the glass wall hang in tension. The construction superintendent described this project as 'more like jewelry than building.'"

— from Carol Herselle Krinsky. Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. p50-51.

Details

"The branch is rectangular, 100 x 125 feet, with an entrance on the north along a narrow side street. This eliminated a door that Hughes had included on Fifth Avenue, leaving the entire Fifth Avenue faŤade uninterrupted."

— from Carol Herselle Krinsky. Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.