Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

[@DavidJGillCA]

Built to last a long time? The fact is the Cleveland FED and the New York FED are the only regional Federal Reserve headquarters banks that still occupy their original buildings. That's 2 out of 12. Why? I can only guess, but it seems obvious that any of these buildings were monumental public buildings that put an emphasis on the face to face transaction space that was accommodated in the main banking room while rather little additional office space was provided. The New York and Cleveland buildings were designed as large office buildings and could accommodate the modern activities of a FED bank which no longer has any use for a main banking room but requires a lot of more routine office space. The grandly impressive main banking room of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland is today just a very large lobby. Cleveland's FED building was the first significant building to be built entirely of pink Etowah marble from Tate, Georgia. Frank Walker (Walker & Weeks) had a thing for exotic stone and marble. The big pink bank must have been quite a sight in Cleveland's smog chocked skies when it opened in 1923. The owner of the marble quarry, Col. Samuel Tate, was so pleased with Walker & Weeks large order for the Cleveland building that he promptly hired the same architects to design a mansion for him. Today that house in Tate, Georgia is known by locals as the Pink Palace and it earns its keep as a wedding venue. The Cleveland FED is not a branch, it is a regional headquarters bank. The Cleveland FED has two branches - in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. All three were designed by Cleveland architects Walker & Weeks. The Cincinnati branch was limited to richly colored interior fit-out for the planned new Chamber of Commerce building in Cincinnati in 1927, all lost. In Pittsburgh, as the Great Depression took hold Walker & Weeks built an Art Deco wonder for the Cleveland FED to accommodate its branch operations there.

[@travelandadventure6904]

That is a good point.....when you look at these two buildings in Cleveland...and New York....they are so impressive.....but you have a valid point...... :)