The Dime Savings Bank of New York, originally the Dime Savings Bank of Brooklyn, operated from 1859 to 2002. It should not be confused with the Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburgh, also headquartered in Brooklyn. The bank's former headquarters building at 9 DeKalb Avenue at Fleet Street in the Civic Center area of Brooklyn was built in 1906-08 and was designed by Mowbray and Uffinger in the Classical Revival style. It was significantly enlarged by Halsey, McCormack and Helmer in 1931-32. The interior of the building is "remarkable" and features large gilded Mercury-head dimes and twelve red marble columns supporting the rotunda; these were added in the 1931-32 expansion. The building was designated a New York City Landmark on July 19, 1994. Dime was acquired by Washington Mutual in 2002, which subsequently failed in 2008. Dime was included in the assets that were sold to JPMorgan Chase by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation after Washington Mutual was seized and placed in receivership. In December 2015, developers Michael Stern and Joe Chetrit completed purchasing the building for $90 million, having entered contract talks with JPMorgan Chase the previous summer. They plan to incorporate the landmark building into a new super-tall skyscraper, using the of air-rights that come with the Dime Savings Bank property. When completed, the building will be the tallest structure in Brooklyn.
History
In July 1994, Dime Bancorp announced the pending acquisition of the Hewlett, New York-based Anchor Bancorp with its Anchor Savings Bank, FSB subsidiary for $1.2 billion in stock. The acquisition was completed in January 1995. The merger resulted in a newly combined company with 76 branches in New York, 18 in New Jersey and 5 in Florida. In September 1999, Hudson United Bancorp and Dime Bancorp announced a merger of equals that was worth $2 billion in stock. But before the merger could be implemented, North Fork Bancorporation initiated a hostile takeover attempt of Dime in March 2000. Since Dime was preoccupied with defending itself against North Fork, Dime and Hudson United decided to terminate their merger agreement in April. North Fork finally gave up in September 2000 after spending several months filling lawsuits against Dime and defending itself against counter lawsuits that were filed by Dime. In June 2001, Washington Mutual announced the pending acquisition of Dime Bancorp for $5.2 billion in cash and stock. The acquisition was completed in January 2002. Dime had 123 branch offices in the New York City area in the states of New York and New Jersey. Historically, Downtown Brooklyn was primarily a commercial and civic center, but since the rezoning of parts of Downtown Brooklyn in 2004 to allow for denser residential development, the area has seen the arrival of new condominium towers, townhouses, and office conversions. The New York City Department of City Planning approved another, significant rezoning for portions of Downtown Brooklyn, including the Fulton Mall area upon which Dime sits, which resulted in significant expansion of office space and ground-floor retail, such as those at City Point across Fleet Street from the bank. The rezoning consists of "zoning map and zoning text changes, new public open spaces, pedestrian and transit improvements, urban renewal, street mappings".
