New York Life Insurance Building, Eight-story office building at Place d'Armes, Montreal, Canada
The New York Life Insurance Building is an eight-storey office block on Place d'Armes, with facades on the square and on Rue Saint-Jacques. Its walls are built of red sandstone cut in Peter Lyall's workshop on Bishop Street, and Henry Beaumont carved the arabesque of the entrance archway, the spandrel panels and the pilaster capitals. The frame mixes iron beams and columns with brick bearing walls; the clock tower brings the height to 46.3 metres.
The building was completed in 1889 and became Montreal's first high-rise as well as its tallest commercial structure at that time. The Romanesque Revival architecture helped define the city's late 19th-century skyline.
The building's name survives in two forms: the original New York Life name and the Quebec Bank name carved above the entrance, still legible after the bank was absorbed by the Royal Bank of Canada in 1917. The ninth and tenth floors held the largest legal library in the country, given to tenants by the owner.
The building stands at 511 Place d'Armes, on the corner of Rue Saint-Jacques, next to the Aldred Building and a short walk from Notre-Dame Basilica. Place-d'Armes Metro serves the square. The Quebec Bank name is carved above the entrance, and the clock tower rises to 46.3 metres.
The clock tower completed the building's full 46.3-metre height, and the owner then gave tenants the ninth and tenth floors as the largest legal library in the country. Henry Beaumont carved the arabesque of the entrance archway, the spandrel panels and the pilaster capitals; the ornamental iron gate came from the E. Chanteloup workshop.
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