It is now a branch of J.P. Morgan Chase, but the bank on the northeast corner of Montague and Clinton Streets in Brooklyn Heights was originally the Brooklyn Trust Company. Designed by Edward York and Philip Sawyer, it is one of the city’s most magnificent banks.

York & Sawyer were New York’s greatest bank architects. Sawyer trained in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and he and York once worked for McKim, Mead & White. On their own, they designed many notable buildings, but we will always remember the firm for its banks. These banks include the former Central Savings Bank (now Apple Bank) at 73rd Street where Broadway crosses Amsterdam; the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Liberty Street; the former Bowery Savings Bank (now a Cipriani catering hall) on East 42nd Street; and the former Greenwich Savings Bank, on 36th Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue. Before they gave us any of these brilliant structures, York & Sawyer produced the Brooklyn Trust Company, the stateliest building in a neighborhood of stately buildings.

Erected in 1915, the building’s exterior loosely follows that of Curtoni’s Palazzo della Gran Guardia in Verona. The bank’s exterior walls are of Indiana limestone, extensively exhibiting the techniques of rustication and vermiculation. The entrance, on Montague, is through an exquisite wrought-iron gate, set within an arch half the height of the building. The architects placed a shield at the keystone, and Corinthian columns rise for two stories above it from bases set within a balustrade. A beautiful deep cornice tops off the whole, with lion’s heads projecting from it above each of the building’s columns and pilasters.

Over the doorway, a scrolled pediment encloses an American eagle. Twin bronze stanchions flank the entrance, their bases modeled as turtles and gryphons. These are among the most beautiful lamp-standards in New York. On the long side of the building on Clinton the upper and lower halves are, respectively, a Corinthian colonnade and a powerful arcade, its arches of the same scale as the entrance on Montague.

Even greater glory awaits within, as one who visits old banks might expect. Here the pattern is loosely that of the tepidarium at the Baths of Caracalla. This through-block, barrel-vaulted space boasts one of the city’s most richly coffered ceilings, suspended from which are chandeliers bearing fully modeled statuettes of female figures. Be sure to look at the beautiful floor. A man named Elmer Ellsworth Garnsey assisted York & Sawyer in creating this splendid interior.

Garnsey was a decorator of rare abilities. He played a major role in the design of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and in New York he worked on such buildings as the Low Memorial Library at Columbia University, the Andrew Carnegie mansion on Fifth and 91st, and the Custom House at Bowling Green. That commentators nowadays largely fail to acknowledge Garnsey’s contributions is an unfortunate measure of the prevailing disregard for the arts of decoration and ornamentation that have so enriched our city.

If you have questions about New York City’s buildings, please e-mail them to fmorrone@nysun.com.