In addition, there is a banquet hall within a former banking room near Lafayette Street; former executive offices on the lower floors; and residential amenities in the cellar and on the roof.

New York Life occupied the rebuilt edifice for three decades, moving to 51 Madison Avenue in 1928, although the firm continued to own the building until 1945.

Clothing firms also rented space in the building during the early 20th century, and 346 Broadway hosted various U.S. federal and New York state government offices from the 1930s to the 1960s.

After the government of New York City acquired the building in 1967, the structure housed the Summons Court and other judicial functions, as well as an art gallery.

[2][15] The western part of the building, including a three-story clock tower, was constructed from 1896 to 1898[2][13] and was designed solely by McKim, Mead & White.

[18] The main entrance on Broadway is designed to resemble a portico, with double-height pilasters and freestanding columns topped by an entablature with a balustrade.

[31] The Catherine Lane elevation is mostly clad in gray brick and terracotta, with the exception of the three westernmost and four easternmost bays, which are respectively part of the Broadway and Lafayette Street pavilions.

[41] Inside the clock tower, on the 13th story (labeled as floor 17[e]), is a double-height rectangular room with brick walls, four windows, and exposed ceiling beams.

[51] The original building's structural frame consists of steel beams, which are spanned by flat arches made of terracotta and are covered with a layer of concrete.

Hatch's initial plan for a circular stairway, connecting each floor near the center of the elevator lobby, was scrapped when McKim, Mead & White took over the design.

[56] The former New York Life banking room, known as the general office, is on the east side of the building, occupying the first and second stories (floors 2 and 3[c]) next to the lobby.

The general office contains double-height windows facing north and south, as well as freestanding Corinthian-style columns that are arranged into two groups.

The central arches on either side lead to the hallways on floor 3, and the two outer archways on the eastern wall contains bulls-eye windows.

The balcony at floor 3 was part of Hatch's original plan but was removed from McKim, Mead & White's final design; it was added in a later renovation.

These offices were originally decorated with wooden moldings, a pair of fireplace mantels with garlands, and neoclassical doorways, but these were subsequently modified with linoleum floors and fluorescent lights.

[58] 108 Leonard contains a 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) amenity space for residents,[58] such as a swimming pool, fitness center, roof deck, and wine cellar.

According to architectural writer Kenneth Gibbs, these buildings allowed each individual company to instill "not only its name but also a favorable impression of its operations" in the general public.

[83][86] Furthermore, life insurance companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries generally built massive buildings to fit their large clerical and records-keeping staff.

[3] New York Life decided to host a closed design competition, hiring five architects and firms (Stephen Decatur Hatch, McKim, Mead & White, George B.

[27][98] After Hatch's death, McKim, Mead & White took over the project,[90][2] designing an annex that extended about 200 ft (61 m) west from Elm Street.

[104][105] As part of the project, New York Life wanted to take over Catherine Lane and build vaults underneath it; this was difficult because the alley was city-owned property.

Meanwhile, the building had become dilapidated; The New York Times wrote that "the rooms at 346 have not been painted in at least a dozen years, dirt on the windows blocks out the sun and more than half the light fixtures have broken bulbs".

The old New York Life Building continued to physically deteriorate through the 1990s, as many of the interior spaces had been covered with linoleum, divided by partitions, and marked by graffiti.

[64] The city's general services commissioner, William J. Diamond, said that 346 Broadway was one of the few city-owned buildings that could be feasibly converted into a private development.

[182][183] The LPC voted in December 2014 to grant a "certificate of appropriateness" to the clock tower's conversion, despite public opposition to that part of the project.

[170] Initially, the city government had intended to relocate the summons court to another building in Tribeca,[185][186] prompting a lawsuit from local residents and organizations.

[163] The Supreme Court revoked the LPC's certificate of appropriateness in March 2016,[163][196] despite the city government's own assertion that the building's owners did not have to maintain the clock.

[214] Among the building's early residents were producer Zoe Jackson;[215][216] singer Keith Urban and actress Nicole Kidman;[73][217] and actor Hugh Jackman.

"[227] Christopher Gray of The New York Times wrote in 1993 that the general office was "rich and Roman, on a scale of interiors like those at the University and Metropolitan Clubs".

[62] When Gray described the rundown building in a Times article in 1993, he said that the Leonard Street lobby contained "the tackiest fake-veneer candy stand left in the city, complete with Beirut-style rolldown steel gates".