Designed in a postmodern style, the building has a granite and glass facade, with several setbacks tapering to an octagonal curtain wall.

After HRO defaulted on its mortgage in 1995, the Paramount Group purchased the property, selling it to Beacon Capital Partners.

[8] Designed by James A. Wetmore, the Assay Office was a five-story structure with a granite facade and steel superstructure.

[9] The site of the Assay Office, selected in November 1929 by U.S. Treasury secretary Andrew Mellon,[10] had contained 15 buildings of four to five stories tall, some dating back almost a century.

[15] To attain more interior area than would otherwise have been allowed, Ronson acquired 135,000 square feet (12,500 m2) of air rights from three neighboring buildings, two of which have since been demolished.

[18] There is a U-shaped arcade running along Gouverneur Lane, Front Street, and Old Slip, screened by a group of polished-granite columns.

HRO also funded the installation of a plaza in the median of Old Slip, which is owned by the city government.

The superstructure is made of steel, with concrete floor slabs that can carry live loads of 100 pounds per square foot (4.8 kPa).

[22] Floors 3 and 37 contain the building's primary mechanical rooms, ventilation units, and electrical equipment.

[24] The next year, HRO built a 36-story building called One Financial Square on the site of the Assay Office.

[2][1] At the time, Financial Square was the largest project that HRO had developed in New York City.

[16] During excavations for the site, contractors found several cannons from late-17th and early-18th century British vessels, which were given to the South Street Seaport Museum.

[25] One of the earliest tenants was Thomson McKinnon Securities, which leased 560,000 square feet (52,000 m2) in the building in December 1985.

At the time, it was 90 percent occupied, with tenants including AIG, BNY Mellon, Daiwa, Goldman Sachs, HIP, and the General Services Administration.

In contrast to most in the region, the building was designed to resist a powerful earthquake, which in part made the structure less prone to flooding.

[41] In 2013 a renovation effort began to add improved flood barriers, pumps and piping systems to better ward against future storms.

[44][45] In addition, Convene leased 36,000 square feet (3,300 m2) for a corporate center on the second floor, which opened in April 2013.

[49][50] Immediately after buying the building, RXR sold the fee interest in the underlying land to Melohn Properties for $197.5 million.

[48][51] Shortly after RXR's purchase, health care advertising firm Cement Bloc leased 55,000 square feet (5,100 m2) on the 15th and 16th floors of the building.

[52] The American Arbitration Association subleased 47,000 square feet (4,400 m2) on the 33rd and 36th floors in September 2017 from insurance company Axa XL.

[53] In October 2018, law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel leased 201,621 square feet (18,731.2 m2), moving their headquarters from nearby 80 Pine Street.

[63][64] The building's construction was documented in the 1990 short film Going Up by Gary Pollard, which was featured in Season 3 of the PBS television program POV.