While 20 Exchange Place was intended to be the world's tallest building at the time of its construction, the Great Depression resulted in the current scaled-back plan.

The main entrance on Exchange Place has a round arch with granite medallions representing the countries where City Bank Farmers Trust operated offices.

The author Daniel M. Abramson gives the largest figure for the building's height, citing 20 Exchange Place as being 760 feet (230 m) tall with 54 stories.

[21] Another Times article and the Wall Street Journal, in 1931, quoted the building as being 745 feet (227 m) tall (accounting for minor deviations), but having only 54 usable stories, excluding the spaces at the top.

[25] When 20 Exchange Place was completed, the Architectural Forum wrote that the building avoided "exaggeration of forms for originality's sake alone".

[11][22][26][29] Some 180,000 cubic feet (5,100 m3) of gray- and blue-tinted stone was quarried from Alabama and brought to New York in pieces weighing up to 49,500 pounds (22,500 kg).

[27][33] In contrast to older classical-style buildings, but similar to other early-20th-century skyscrapers such as 70 Pine Street, the facade of 20 Exchange Place was designed as a "flowing unified surface" and was not visually linked to its internal superstructure.

[12][15] The main entrance, on the Exchange Place elevation, has a round arch surrounded by eleven granite medallions, representing the countries where City Bank Farmers Trust operated offices.

[29] The underlying ground contained quicksand and water, as well as foundations from the previous buildings on the site, and the entire city block was irregularly shaped.

[53] The high ceilings of the building's lower stories have been used as a filming location for several movies such as Inside Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

[54] David Evans designed many of the lobby's decorations, including doors and grilles containing representations of navigation, engineering, mechanics, and architecture.

[35][38][57] The space measures 48 by 85 feet (15 by 26 m), with large pillars and English oak paneling,[35][38] and contained officers' desks on either side of a central hall.

[62] Another half-flight of curved marble stairs, leading down from the rotunda, connected to the branch banking rooms, whose main entrance was at William and Beaver Streets.

[71] Telephone engineers considered the exchange to be the world's largest,[67] with 37 switchboard operators connecting with 600 trunk lines and 3,600 extensions.

[6][77] In subsequent years, other banks began moving to residential buildings on Wall Street and, by the 1820s, financial institutions made up the vast majority of tenants there.

[51][84][85] According to the Architectural Forum, the design process had to be "a coordinated solution to complex mechanical problems and the strenuous demands of economics", with aesthetic considerations as an afterthought.

[32][81] In October 1929, City Bank Farmers Trust filed tentative plans for a structure of either 846.4 or 925 feet (258.0 or 281.9 m),[b] with 75 stories[47][81][c] and a budget of $9.5 million.

[31] A contemporary source wrote that the project provided "unemployment relief, a matter of much moment at this writing", when the Great Depression in the United States was just beginning.

[110] City Bank Farmers Trust remained the largest occupant of the building, occupying 75 percent of the floor area at its peak.

[115] The same year, 20 Exchange Place's eastern wing was undergoing renovations; in late 1961, some of these materials caught fire, leading 25 people to be trapped in the elevators.

Some 130,000 square feet (12,000 m2) in the lowest eighteen floors was retained as commercial space; a third of this area was taken by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 1999.

[120] When DMJM Harris Arup took a 70,500-square-foot (6,550 m2) sublease at 20 Exchange Place in early 2002, it became one of the largest office leases in Lower Manhattan since the September 11, 2001, attacks.

[54][122] DTH Capital, a joint venture between the Bruckner family's Eastbridge Group and AG Real Estate, became the new developers of the building.

[20][21] In 2014, DTH Capital received an additional $240 million loan that allowed the firm to convert the 9th through 15th floors to 221 luxury units.

As a result, DTH Capital hired elevator mechanics to remain on site at all times and offered rent concessions and hotel rooms to 20 Exchange Place's residents.

[43] DTH had also hired several teams of experts, who suspected the issues were related to power surges from Consolidated Edison machinery, but Con Ed said its equipment was functioning properly.

[43][129] The elevator issues led some residents to report feeling trapped in the building, while others said they had to climb many flights of stairs to access their apartments.

[130] Conwell Coffee Hall opened in the former bank lobby in February 2024, with an immersive show called Life and Trust.

[67] In a book published in 1932, W. Parker Chase wrote, "Everything in connection with this monumental building expresses beauty, completeness and grandeur.

But up close, it is rich with silver nickel moderne-style metalwork, and the interiors are a perplexing mix of staid banker and Art Deco classicism.