An Uncertain Return at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza

It took “both imagination and a sense of citizenship to clear an open plaza on some of the city’s most valuable land and to throw it open to the light of the sun â€" and to the public.”

Those were the words of David Rockefeller, the president of Chase Manhattan Bank, when 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza opened in 1961. He was speaking about himself, but he happened to be right.

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times Part of a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet in the plaza can be seen above a barricade on William Street.

Among the shadows of Lower Manhattan, there are few oases as inviting as 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, a landmark in every sense, including official. There is room to breathe, two and a half acres of it. There is reason to delight, in Jean Dubuffet’s monumental sculpture. There is opportunity to reflect, in the austere sunken sculpture court by Isamu Noguchi.

At least there was until September 2011, when JPMorgan Chase, successor to Chase Manhattan, barricaded the plaza. The bank offered no explanation, though the move seemed clearly intended to foreclose any attempted takeover by the Occupy Wall Street movement. As the protesters’ presence diminished downtown, however, the plaza stayed closed. Some construction work occurred, on and off. Chase maintained its silence. And its barricades.

Now, it seems almost certain that another summer will go by in which the public is deprived the use of the plaza. This would also mean the second cancellation of the popular Dine Around Downtown fair sponsored by the Downtown Alliance.

The plaza is “an important amenity downtown,” said Catherine McVay Hughes, the chairwoman of Community Board 1 and a resident of the financial district. “It was a place of beauty where you could pass through and have a sense of relief and calm.” She said the plaza provided a vital east-west pedestrian route along the former line of Cedar Street, which was closed in 1956 from Nassau to William Streets to accommodate the Chase development.

A view of the sculpture installation shows the size of the plaza.

In 2012, after numerous approaches, bank officials sat down with community board members to explain the construction project. “We were told that the work would be completed this spring,” Ms. Hughes said. The board expects to get another update next month. “Hopefully, when Chase comes to the meeting, they’ll be telling us when the opening date is,” she said, “because we’re approaching the two-year closure point.”

A bank spokeswoman remained vague about when the public might again be able to use the space. “Once construction is complete, we intend to operate the building in a way that makes the plaza available to the public for passive use and enjoyment, in accordance with appropriate rules,” the spokeswoman, Melissa Shuffield, said.

JPMorgan Chase received approval in September 2010 from the Buildings Department for “waterproofing repairs to plaza areas.”

Carl T. Gossett/The New York Times David Rockefeller, president of Chase Manhattan, with Mr. Dubuffet in 1972. Mr. Rockefeller said 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza was open to the public.

The project is not simple. The plaza is directly over a spacious Chase bank branch. As a rule, plazas atop interior spaces pose challenges. They’re not merely flat roofs, with inherent drainage problems, but roofs on which hundreds walk each day. They’re bound to develop leaks. Water infiltration can be hard to trace if the roof extends two and a half acres and the site is battered by storms like Hurricane Sandy.

Almost certainly complicating logistics and timetables is the facade repair project at the 20 Pine Street apartment tower, because it abuts and overlooks the plaza.

Construction hurdles aside, the question remains whether the bank is obliged to keep 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza open.

JPMorgan Chase & Company asserts that it is not. A memorandum of law filed by the bank last December in a related lawsuit stated: “Because 1CMP is private property, JPMC as its owner has the fundamental right, protected by the federal Constitution, to exclude the public from the plaza.” The plaza was built before the 1961 Zoning Resolution and the advent of privately owned public spaces, in which owners provide public access in return for benefits like being able to construct buildings larger than normally allowed.

Manhattan Land Book (1934) The 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza block, outlined in red, used to be bisected by Cedar Street, at center.

However, a compelling historical wrinkle appears in the records of the Board of Standards and Appeals, which granted the zoning variance needed by the bank to construct an 806-foot tower without setbacks. In its June 12, 1956, resolution, the board noted that “the building will only occupy 27.3 percent of the entire plot, leaving 72.7 percent for a plaza, which will afford light and air and room for relaxation for the applicant’s employees and for others in the area.”

To Jerold S. Kayden, a professor of urban planning and design at Harvard and the author of “Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience” (2000), that suggests the bank did make a pledge, even if it was not legally binding.

“The B.S.A. of the time may not have dotted every legal ‘i’ and crossed every legal ‘t,’” Mr. Kayden said, “but the intent of both bank and city is crystal clear. I hope JPMorgan Chase recognizes not only that it more or less promised a public plaza, but that it has provided a terrific, and now terribly missed, public space for more than 50 years. Your public is calling. My only request is, this summer, please.”

David W. Dunlap/The New York Times The plaza is a vision of tranquillity but, for now, beyond public reach.