One Chase Manhattan Plaza

One Chase Manhattan Plaza, now known by its street address 28 Liberty Street, rises in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, completed in 1961 to a design by Gordon Bunshaft of the firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill as the headquarters of Chase Manhattan Bank under the leadership of David Rockefeller. Its stark International Style glass and aluminum curtain wall tower was set back from the street on a large open plaza, an arrangement unusual in the tightly packed Financial District and made possible by demolishing a dense block of older buildings. The plaza itself was landscaped with a sunken garden designed by the sculptor Isamu Noguchi and today displays Jean Dubuffet's sculpture Group of Four Trees, commissioned by David Rockefeller in the 1970s. The building and its plaza were widely credited with encouraging later corporate towers in Lower Manhattan to provide similar public open space.