The three chapters of the Corbin Building.

The Austin Corbin Building was designed by Francis Kimball and opened on Lower Broadway and John Street in 1888. Only 20-feet across on its Broadway edge, it floats down John Street in a magnificent arcade. For decades, it held the offices of Mr. Corbin's banking interests, offices for steam pipe makers, watch makers and sellers, lighting fixture manufacturers, and, notably, diamond whole sellers.

It fell into dark times, forgotten, neglected and filthy. As the rest of the block was replaced by miserable low buildings in the 1960s, architectural critics noted it looked like a bookend holding up nothing. After 9/11, as plans were drawn up to turn the entire block into an ancillary hub to the new transportation building at the World Trade Center, the fate of the Corbin Building seemed certain: The wrecker's ball.

Fortunately, the ever-heroic New York Historical and Preservation Commission saw the diamond-in-the-rough and successfully lobbied for the building's elevated status as a cultural landmark. They succeeded. And nearly a decade of restoration began.

Look at how the thousands of pieces of applied terra cotta were cleaned and fixed, the brownstone cleaned, the cast iron window bays painted, and perhaps most triumphantly, the pyramid finials in each tower restored giving the building its original flair and pluckiness once more! 

It is a beautiful building, an arcade of Romanesque revivalism and richness, a symphony of materials, and its survival has been protected for many generations to come.