Jarmulowsky Bank Building

Lower East Side

New York City

Art & Culture | History

Historic Building Dubbed “The Temple of Capitalism” Turned Hip Hotel

About Jarmulowsky Bank Building

& why it made the Carpe City list

This limestone and terra cotta Beaux-Arts building on the corner of Orchard and Canal Streets, dubbed the “Temple of Capitalism,” was built in 1912 by “East Side J.P. Morgan” banker/Talmudic scholar Sender Jarmulowsky.
At 12 stories, it was once the tallest building on the Lower East Side.
Jarmulowsky added a cupola to the top of the building (it was removed in 1990, but is now being restored) so that his bank would officially beat out The Forward Building as the loftiest perch on the LES.
Jarmulowsky came to the United States from Germany in the early 1870s and began operating his bank in its present location on the corner of Orchard and Canal Streets in 1878.
Jarmulowsky was a household name on the then-largely-Jewish LES.
- He was the first president of the Eldridge Street Synagogue, and his bank catered to a variety of needs within the community.
- Newly arrived immigrants could set up bank accounts, send money home, and purchase steerage tickets to bring family members to New York.
As business thrived, a new building was in order.
- While the Jarmulowsky Bank Building was under construction, The New York Times called it the “first strictly high-class tall bank and office building” on the LES.
Jarmulowsky died in 1912, just three weeks after his high-class bank opened.
His sons took over the business and promptly ran it into the ground. The bank failed in 1917.
A century later, the Jarmulowsky bank building is once again strictly high-class… it was recently converted into a hip hotel.
- Known as Nine Orchard, the hotel has a great restaurant called Corner Bar helmed by one of our favorite chefs, Ignacio Mattos.

Carpe City Trivia

Opening day at Jarmulowski Bank was a public holiday on the Lower East Side

Sender Jarmulowsky was so revered on the Lower East Side –as a businessman, a scholar, and a philanthropist — that when his beautiful new building opened on May 6, 1912, it was a neighborhood holiday, complete with a parade!

In 1899, Jarmulowsky made his wife, Rebecca, a partner in the bank

Rebecca’s contributions to the operation and management of the bank were so significant that she was listed in directories as a banker in her own right, separately from her husband.