Equitable Building

The Equitable Building is an office tower at 120 Broadway in lower Manhattan, designed by the architect Ernest R. Graham and completed in 1915 on the site of an earlier Equitable Life Assurance Society building lost to fire. Rising 38 stories straight up from its lot line with no setbacks, its massive bulk cast a shadow over several surrounding blocks and blocked light and air from neighboring buildings, a complaint that became a central argument for regulating building form. The public reaction to the building is widely credited as a direct cause of New York City's 1916 Zoning Resolution, the first comprehensive zoning law in the United States, which required new tall buildings to step back as they rose in order to preserve light at street level.