Historic 125th Street Bank Building To Be Demolished By Developer

EAST HARLEM, NY — A developer has filed plans to demolish an entire corner of 125th Street, including a historic bank building that has stood there for over a century.

The Harlem Savings Bank Building, on East 125th Street near Lexington Avenue, will soon face the wrecking ball along with the two-story corner building next door, most recently home to a pizzeria.

The teardown plans were filed Friday by Jorge Madruga, founder of the development company Maddd Equities, who purchased the site for a combined $25.8 million between 2020 and 2021.

Madruga said at the time that he planned to build an eight- or nine-story building on the site with retail and offices, though he did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his current plans Monday.

Constructed in 1907, the granite-clad bank building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places — a symbolic honor that does not protect it from demolition. (Such protection can come from the city's landmarks commission, which has not designated the bank building.)

Built in the Classical Revival style by architects Bannister & Schell, the building was constructed just as 125th Street "was becoming the main commercial thoroughfare in Harlem," and helped bolster the image of the Harlem Savings Bank, according to a 2003 history by the National Park Service.

"The former Harlem Savings Bank building is architecturally significant as an example of a Classical Revival bank erected to support the needs of a local community," the National Park Service report reads. "Its location on East 125th Street reflects the important role of this street as Harlem’s principal commercial thoroughfare during the early 20th century."

After operating exclusively on 125th Street for a few decades, Harlem Savings Bank expanded throughout the city in the ensuing years, later renaming itself the Apple Bank for Savings — whose name remained on the 125th Street building until the branch's recent closure.

The bank building got a slightly less favorable reception from longtime New York Times architecture reporter Christopher Gray, who called it "clunky" and "chunky" in a 2005 column.

The new building set to rise on the 11,600-square-foot site will be bolstered by air rights from other nearby properties, adding to its size, developers said last year.

Madruga, the developer, and his company Maddd Equities have come under scrutiny for the deaths of three construction workers at the site of a Bronx building that Maddd is converting into a charter school.

Have a Harlem news tip? Contact reporter Nick Garber at nick.garber@patch.com.

Related coverage: East Harlem Developer Plots 125th Street Complex: Report