The Federal Reserve Building has fourteen above-ground stories and five basement levels, designed by York and Sawyer with decorative ironwork by Samuel Yellin of Philadelphia.

[16] The facade is made of tan brick, with an arcade of 43-foot-high (13 m) columns at ground level and turrets on the roofline to match the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Building's design.

[19] From 1988 to 1992, the building held a branch of the Whitney Museum of American Art, designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.

[34] By the 21st century, the interior contained a security checkpoint,[42] and the ground floor also had an exhibition space that displayed numismatic artifacts.

[43][44] Most of the remaining interior was described as being of "standard office building construction", according to The Wall Street Journal.

The thirteenth and fourteenth floors contained cafeterias, which were originally separate facilities for women, men, and bank officers.

[42] The Federal Reserve Building's three-story gold vault is toward the western end of the site, adjoining Nassau Street.

[47][52] As of 2018[update], there has never been a successful break-in attempt,[30] though a fictional robbery of the vault was depicted in the 1995 film Die Hard with a Vengeance.

Staff wear steel-toe footwear to protect their feet in case they drop one of the gold bars, each of which weighs 28 pounds (13 kg).

[42][51] Every time the compartments are opened or gold is moved, three Fed staff members are required to oversee the transaction.

[57] By the late 1910s, the Fed's employees were working in several locations, including 50 Wall Street and part of the Equitable Building.

[46][59] The New York Fed's directors passed a resolution on October 24, 1917, providing for the construction of a new headquarters building.

[34][57] The Fed decided to buy the entire city block bounded by Nassau, Liberty, and William Streets and Maiden Lane.

The New York Fed's staff had grown from 175 to 1,200 in the past year, but the bank wished to wait until the end of World War I to build its headquarters.

[68][69] Alexander Trowbridge, the Federal Reserve Board's consulting architect, was the adviser for the design competition.

[7] The plans for a 14-story structure ran contrary to the expectations of observers who thought the site would be developed with a low-rise building.

[70] Marc Eidlitz & Son was hired as the building's general contractor,[71] while Samuel Yellin successfully submitted a bid to install ornamental ironwork.

[66][77] Marc Eidlitz & Son started constructing the Federal Reserve Building's structural system after the excavations had finished.

[80] This had been the only structure on the city block that the Fed had been unable to acquire when it started assembling land for the Federal Reserve Building fifteen years prior.

A name sign was installed in 1944 after numerous war bondholders complained that they had gotten lost for several hours in the Financial District while looking for the building.

The tower was intended to house 1,500 of the New York Fed's 4,500 employees, which worked at four separate structures near the Federal Reserve Building.

[47] The reserves declined in subsequent years because, in 1971, the direct international convertibility of the United States dollar to gold had been canceled in what was called the Nixon shock.

[89] The New York Fed also leased space at 3 World Financial Center, but the original 33 Liberty Street structure remained its primary building.

[57] Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, which resulted in the collapse of the World Trade Center nearby, the New York Fed continued to operate.

For several weeks after the attacks, the Federal Reserve used its building to provide assistance to first responders working at the World Trade Center site.

Margaret Law, writing for Architecture magazine in 1927, stated that the building carried "a quality which, for lack of a better word, I can best describe as epic".

[52] The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) stated that the visual impact of the structure derives from its "vast size, fortress-like appearance, fine proportions and in the superb quality of construction".

[5][2][40] Architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern stated that the building's "innovative" Florentine design had inspired other banks to be built in a similar style.

Stern wrote that the structure "demonstrate[d] how a bank could achieve strong visual identity even if located within an office building".

[2][93][94] The city landmark designation was opposed by the building's owner, the Fed, which wrote that federal property could not be regulated by local governments.